Even Mrs. Mason, who now considered herself as something more than friend or godmother, felt constrained to go away and leave the poor girl to the isolation she pleaded for; though with some little resentment at the bottom of her kind heart.
Mrs. Storms was not to be dissuaded from all kindliness so easily. When the neighbors were gone she came into the room where Ruth was sitting, and in a gentle, motherly fashion, sat down by the mourner and strove to comfort her.
"Come," she said, taking the girl's cold hands in the clasp of her hard-working fingers, "come, lass, and stay with me. This house is so full of gloom that you will pine to death in it. Our home is large, and bright with sunshine. You shall have the lady's chamber, which will be all your own some blessed day, God willing."
The good woman caught her breath here, for something like an electric shock flashed through the hands she clasped, and Ruth made a struggle to free herself from the thraldom of kindness that was torturing her.
"I know—I know this isn't the time to speak of weddings; but you have no mother, and I never had a girl in the house; so if you would only come now, and be company for me—only company for the old woman—it would be better and happier for us all."
Ruth did not answer this loving appeal. She only closed her eyes and shuddered faintly. Great emotions had exhausted themselves with her.
"Be sure, Ruth, it is not my son alone who loves you. From the first I have always looked upon you as my own lass, and a prettier no mother need want, or a better, either."
"No, no, you must not say that," Ruth cried out; for the anguish of these praises was more than she could bear. "He thought me pretty—he thought me good, and how have I repaid him? Oh, my father, my poor dead father, it was love for me that killed him!"
Mrs. Storms was silent a while. She understood this piteous outcry as a burst of natural grief, and gave it no deeper significance; but she felt the task of comforting the poor girl more difficult than she had imagined. What could she say that would not call forth some new cause of agitation? The subject which she had fondly trusted in seemed to give nothing but pain. Yet no hint had ever reached the woman that the attachment of her son was not more than returned by this orphaned girl. Perhaps Ruth was wounded that Richard was not there in place of his mother. With this possibility in her mind the matron renewed her kindly entreaties.
"You must not think it strange, dear, that Richard left the funeral without coming back to the cottage. It was that his heart was full of the great trouble, and he would not darken the cottage with more than you could bear. The father, too—for you must think of him as that, dear child—has well nigh broke his heart over the loss of his old friend. He's eager as can be to have a daughter in the house, and will be good as gold to her."