"Oh, yes, I can wait, since you are polite enough to give me leave."
"Pray rest yourself, while I go into the garden."
Judith folded her arms, leaned back in her chair, and said that she could wait; the mistress did not expect her to come back yet a while.
CHAPTER XLII.
PROFFERED SERVICES.
RUTH went into the garden, which was lying in shadow just then; so she required no covering for her head, but rather enjoyed the bland south wind which drifted softly through her loose hair, as she stooped to pluck the roses.
Meantime Judith Hart lifted herself from the lounging attitude into which she had sunk, and in an instant became sharply alert. Upon a little chintz couch that occupied one side of the room she found the scarlet sacque and a dainty little hat, which Ruth had flung there before going up to her father, after her return from "The Rest." Quick as thought, Judith slipped on the sacque, and placed the hat with its side cluster of red roses on her head. After giving a sharp glance through the window, to make sure that Ruth was still occupied in the garden, she went up to a little mirror, and took a hasty survey of herself.
"The jacket is as like as two peas," she thought, "and the hat is easy got. There'll be no trouble in twisting up one side like this. As to the roses, he must get them before the fair is over. If I could only wear them in broad daylight, before all their faces, it would be splendid; but he won't give in to that. Farther on, I'll show him and them, too, what a dash Richard Storms has in a wife. Oh, goodness, here she comes!"
Quick as lightning the girl flung off the sacque; tossed the hat down upon it, and ran to the seat she had left. When Ruth came in, she was sitting there, casting vague looks around her, as if she had been quietly resting all the time.