Ralph's first step was to write to Mr. Arnott, offering to pay the two-and-sixpence in the pound, which had once made him so miserable. His creditors, one and all, begged him not to do so, and Ralph thanked them, and accepted their kindness frankly, for the children's sake.
Ralph made no change in his life for some months for he was anxious to act prudently for the interests of his charge. Then, as Ollie declared that of all things he wished to be a bookseller, he purchased the shop and good-will of a person in that line of business in the chief town of the county in which Fairford stood. And so, of course, he gave up his house in Lady Mabel's Rest.
Ruth was quite sorry to leave it, and to part with her kind friend, Miss Jones. From her other friend, Mrs. Cloudesley, she would not be parted, as Mr. Cloudesley had accepted a living in the very town to which the Trulocks were going. Ralph manages the business so well that they are very comfortable and prosperous, and the old man's life is a very happy one.
"My Christmas Roses," he says sometimes to May Cloudesley, "they make my old age the brightest time I have known!"