CHAPTER VII
Ruth met North as he came up the garden path.
“So you have come this afternoon! I did so hope you would.”
“What is it?” he asked. “Nothing wrong with the farm?”
“Wrong with the farm!” Ruth laughed. “Now just feel it.”
It was steeped in sunshine and the scent of violas. On the garden wall the pigeons cooed sleepily. From the river came the lilt of a child’s laugh.
“It feels all right,” said North gravely.
“Just as happy and sound and wholesome as can be,” she said. “I asked you to come because something wonderful—I believe wonderful—has happened. I felt I must tell you at once. And I want to ask you things, want to ask you quite terribly badly. Come up and sit by the blue flower border. I have the chairs there. It is at its very best.”
“So you have kept that too,” said North, even as his daughter had said.
“It is one of the many beautiful things I found here,” she answered. “The place is full of thoughts just like that. I hope I have not lost any, but if I have they will come back.” She stopped to lift up some of the frail nemophilas. Just so North had seen women arrange their children’s hair.