CHAPTER XXII
A GREAT TEMPTATION
About this time Ruth suffered a great temptation. She was so little given to covetousness or envy, that other girls of her class might have dresses, jewelry, and many other things dear to girlish hearts, without Ruth's being at all disturbed.
Her one great, overmastering passion was for Independence! She envied none of her mates anything but that.
Now she fell under temptation, and this was the way of it: Ruth belonged to the picked class that the physical instructor had chosen for exhibition gymnasium work at the mid-winter entertainment. This year there were to be important visitors at the school, and Mrs. Tellingham wished to make the occasion a more than ordinarily successful entertainment.
The class of twenty girls, selected from the best of the seniors and juniors, was to drill, dance, and go through other gymnastic exercises. And it was agreed among them that each girl should have a brand new costume, although this was no suggestion of either the teacher or Mrs. Tellingham.
The class invented this idea itself. It was agreed—nineteen in favor, at least—to appear at the entertainment in a brand new outfit. And how could Ruth say "No?"
Every girl in the class but herself had only to write home for money and order the uniform. As it chanced, Ruth had plenty of money to pay for a costume. Helen, who was one of the number, knew Ruth had that fifty dollars in gold that Uncle Jabez had given the girl of the Red Mill the day she left home.
This was the temptation: Ruth had promised herself never to use that money. She had a small sum left from her vacation money, and she was making that do for incidentals, until she could earn more in some way. She was already tutoring both Nettie Parsons and Ann Hicks in their more advanced textbooks, and they were paying her small sums for this help.
But she could not earn enough in this way—nor in any other—to buy the new gymnasium costume. And there were the five ten-dollar gold pieces lying in a little jeweler's box in the bottom of her trunk.