"Why, to no one. I should like to see man or woman attempt to cheat me out of my trust! I will say this for Jessup, headstrong as he is about having you with him, he has not interfered. When it was my pleasure to have you taught things that only ladies think of learning, he never thought of having a word to say against it; so I had my own way with my own money, and you will know the good of all the learning when you are old enough to go among people, and think of a husband, which must not be for years yet."
Ruth sighed heavily.
"Meantime, my dear," continued the housekeeper, "we must be looking about for the proper person. With the learning we have given you, and certain prospects, we shall have a right to look high. Not among the gentry, though you will be pretty enough and bright enough for most of them, according to my thinking; but there are genteel tradespeople in the village, and they sometimes creep up among the gentry in these times. So who knows that you will not be made a lady in that way?"
"Oh, no! Do not speak of it—do not think of it!" said Ruth, with nervous energy. "I cannot bear that!"
"What a child it is! but I like to see it. Forward young things are my abomination; but you may as well know it first as last, Ruthy. When I promised your dying mother to be a mother to you, it was not in words; but deep down in my heart, I gave you that other child's place. I am an old woman, and have saved money, which would have been hers, and shall be yours some of these days."
Ruth let her head fall on the kind housekeeper's shoulder, and burst into a passion of tears. Again the old woman patted her upon the cheek.
"Why, child, what is the matter? I thought this news would make you happy. Take this for your comfort, my savings are heavier than people think."
"Don't! oh, don't! I cannot bear it," sobbed the girl. "Everybody—that is almost everybody—is far too kind: you above all. Only—only it is not money I want just now."
"But my dear—"
"All the money in the world, if you could give it me, could not be so much as the thing I asked just now," Ruth broke in, made desperate as the subject of her wish seemed drifting out of sight. "I want it so much—so much."