"If you mean to wed this young man, why not say so at any rate to your own father? It is the best way out of this difficulty."
"Difficulty!"
"There, there! I can see no use in all this blushing, as red as the strawberries one minute, and denying it the next. Ruth, Ruth! deception and craft should not belong to your mother's child. I don't pretend to like this young man over much, but, under the circumstances, I have nothing to say. If your father is against it, a little persuasion from Sir Noel will set all that right."
"What—what do you mean, grandmother?" questioned Ruth, hoarse with dread.
"I mean to stop people's mouths by an honest marriage with a man, who, after all, is a good match enough. If you have ever been uplifted to thoughts of a better, it has come from too much notice from gentle people at 'The Rest,' and from too much reading of poetry books. But for that, there would never have been these meetings in the park, and moonlight flittings about the lake, to scandalize people. Think better of it, Ruth, or worse mischief than the scandal that is in everybody's mouth may come out of it. Nothing but an honest marriage can put an end to it."
"Scandal!" whispered the girl, rising slowly, and turning her white face on the housekeeper. "What scandal?"
"Such as any girl may expect, Ruthy, who meets young men in the park, and, worst of all, by the lake."
"The lake! The park!" repeated the poor girl, aghast with apprehension; for every walk or chance meeting she had shared with young Hurst rushed back upon her, with accusing vividness. "Who has said—who has dared?"
Here the frightened young creature burst into a passion of tears. The walks, the chance meetings, each a romance and an adventure, to dream of and hoard up in her thoughts, like a poem got by heart. Who could have torn them from their privacy, and bruited them abroad to her discredit? In what way would she deny or explain them? More and more pale her face grew, and her slender figure drooped with humiliation.
"There, there, little one, do not look so miserable. I did not mean to hurt your feelings. Of course, I remember you have no mother to say what is right or wrong. Only this, never meet the young man again. It breeds scandal."