"Is it Ruth?" asked Malcolm, staring hard through his thick, near-sighted gla.s.ses.

"Has she got Becky?" inquired Oliver.

"Explain yourself," laughed Alec, going to the screen door and letting Ruth in.

We all gathered round her.

"h.e.l.lo, everybody," she smiled at us over Becky's shoulder. She was warm with walking. "Nothing to explain. Just decided to run up here, that's all, and found this poor little thing crying down by the gate. It's Becky, isn't it, Oliver? I haven't seen her for a year."

"It's just a shame you didn't let us meet you," said Edith. "Walking in this weather! I declare it is. Come, give that child to me, and you go on upstairs and get washed up. She's ruining your skirt. Come, Becky."

Becky is an extremely timid little creature. She hadn't let any one but Oliver touch her since Madge had gone the day before. She had been crying most of the time. Her lip quivered at the sight of Edith's outstretched hands. I saw her plump arm tighten around Ruth's neck.

"Here, come, Becky," said Oliver sternly, and offered to take her himself. She turned away even from him. "She takes fancies," explained Oliver. "You're in for it, I'm afraid, Ruth."

"Am I?" Ruth said, flushing unaccountably. "Well, you see," she went on apologetically, "I came upon her down there by the gate just as she had fallen down and hurt her knee. I was the only one to pick her up, so she had to let me. I put powder on the bruised knee. It interested her. It made her laugh. We had quite a game, and when I came away she insisted upon coming, too."

"You see, Madge has started for Colorado," I explained, "and Becky----"

"Colorado!" exclaimed Ruth. Of course she didn't know.

We told her about it.

"Poor little lonely kiddie," Ruth said softly afterward, giving Becky a strange little caress with the tip of her finger on the end of the child's infinitesimal nose. "Most as forlorn as some one they don't invite to family reunions any more."

"Why, Ruth," I remonstrated. "We thought--you see----"

"Never mind," she interrupted lightly. "I wasn't serious. I'll run upstairs now, and freshen up a bit."

"Come, Becky," ordered Oliver, "get down."

I saw Becky's arm tighten around Ruth's neck again. She's an unaccountable child.

Ruth said quietly, "Let her come upstairs with me, if she wants. I haven't had a welcome like this since the days of poor little Dandy."

An hour later Edith and I found Ruth sitting in a rocking-chair in the room that used to be hers years ago when she was a young girl. She was holding Becky.

"What in the world are you doing?" asked Edith.

"I never held a sleeping child before, and I'm discovering," replied Ruth, softly so as not to disturb Becky. "Aren't the little things limp?"

"Well, put her down now, do," said practical Edith. "We want you downstairs. Luncheon is nearly ready."

"I can't yet," said Ruth. "Every time I start to leave her she cries, and won't let me. Isn't it odd of the little creature? You two go on down. I'll be with you as soon as I can."

Later that afternoon we continued the discussion that Ruth had interrupted. Oliver didn't seem to be any more reconciled to the arrangement than before.

"I hate to break the home all up," he objected. "I want to keep the children together. Madge does, too. I should think there ought to be some one who likes children, and who wants a home, who could come and help me out for six months, who wouldn't cost too much."

"Hired help! No, no. Never works," Tom said, shaking his head.

"You have to be away so much on business, you know, Oliver," I reminded.

Suddenly Ruth spoke, picking up a magazine and opening it. "How would I do, instead of the hired help, Oliver?" she asked, casually glancing at an advertis.e.m.e.nt. "Becky didn't seem to mind me."

"You!" echoed Malcolm.

"Why, Ruth!" I exclaimed.

"What in the world do you mean?" demanded Edith.

"Oh, thanks," smiled Oliver kindly upon her. "Thanks, Ruth. It is bully of you to offer, but, of course, I wouldn't think of such a thing."

"Why not?" she inquired calmly. "I could give you the entire summer. I'm taking a two months' vacation this year."

"Oh, no, no. No, thanks, Ruth. Our apartment is, no vacation spot. I a.s.sure you of that. Hot, noisy, one general housework girl. It certainly is fine of you, but no, thanks, Ruth. Such a sacrifice is not necessary."

"It wouldn't be a sacrifice," remarked Ruth, turning a page of the magazine.

"Oh, come, come, Ruth!" broke in Tom irritably. "Let us not discuss such an impossibility. We're wasting time. You have your duties. This is not one of them. It's a fine impulse, generous. Oliver appreciates it. But it's quite out of the question."

"I don't see why," Ruth pursued. "For an unattached woman to come and take care of her brother's children during her vacation seems to me the most natural thing in the world."

"You know nothing about children," snorted Tom.

"I can learn," Ruth persisted.

Ruth's offer proved to be no pa.s.sing whim, no sentimental impulse of the moment. Scarcely a week later, and she was actually installed in Oliver's small apartment. The family talked of little else at their various dinner-tables for weeks to come. Of all Ruth's vagaries this seemed the vaguest and most mystifying.

Oliver's apartment is really quite awful, disorderly, crowded, incongruous. It contains a specimen of every kind of furniture since the period of hair-cloth down to mission--cast-offs from the homes of Oliver's more fortunate brothers and sisters. When I first saw Ruth there in the midst of the confusion of unpacking, the room in Irving Place with its old chests and samovars, Esther Claff quietly writing in her corner, the telephone bell m.u.f.fled to an undisturbing whirr, flashed before me.

The baby was crying. I smelled the odor of steaming clothes, in process of washing in the near-by kitchen. I heard the deep voice of the big Irish wash-woman I had engaged, conversing with the rough Norwegian.

Becky was hanging on to Ruth's skirt and begging to be taken up. In the apartment below some one was playing a victrola. I hoped Ruth was not as conscious as I of Van de Vere's at this time in the morning--low bells, subdued voices, velvet-footed attendants, system, order.

"Well, Ruth," I broke out, "I hope you'll be able to stand this. If it's too much you must write and let me know."

She picked up Becky and held her a moment. "I think I shall manage to pull through," she replied.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

RUTH DRAWS CONCLUSIONS

Will and I were buried in a little place in Newfoundland all summer, and Ruth's letters to us, always three days old when they reached me, were few and infrequent. What brief notes she did write were non-committal.

They told their facts without comment. I tried to read between the practical lines that announced she had changed the formula for the baby's milk, that she had had to let down Emily's dresses, that she had succeeded in persuading Oliver to spend his three weeks' vacation with Madge in Colorado, finally that Becky had been ill, but was better now.

I was unable to draw any conclusions. I knew what sort of service Ruth's new enterprise required--duties performed over and over again, homely tasks, no pay, no praise. I knew the daily wear and tear on good intentions and exalted motives. I used to conjecture by the hour with Will upon what effect the summer would have on Ruth's theories. She has advanced ideas for women. She believes in their emanc.i.p.ation.