"She's worth a dozen Janes," said cook to herself, for she was not so wholly engrossed with her own pursuits as to be quite unobservant of Ruth's disappointment.
"I don't know how it is," thought Ruth, as the busy evening wore away; "cook and I do get on well together; she's quite pleasant to-night, and wasn't cross, though I took the wrong sauce in just now."
Ah, Ruth, if there were more sunny tempers and unclouded faces like yours in the world, there would oftener come to clouded minds and gloomy moods just such brightness as you have brought to your fellow-servant to-night!
John's brother Dick was several years older than John. Some ten years previously he had taken to a seafaring life, but soon tiring of it, he had settled in Australia. We say settled, but Dick Greenwood was one of those men who could never be truly said to settle to anything. He had tried farming, but the work was too hard; then he had joined a party going into the bush, their free and easy life having an attraction for him. After that, he went into a city store, and just as he had mastered the details of the business and might have succeeded in it, he was charmed by the performances of a band of travelling actors, and not being without natural ability in that direction, he had induced them to accept his services, and now, with little money, and a great deal of shady experience, he had worked his passage back to England, that he might just see how things were looking in the old country.
"Well, Jack, my boy, how are you?" he said in a loud, hoarse voice, as John entered the room, which was redolent of tobacco and brandy.
"All right, Dick; glad to see you, though I shouldn't have known you again. My word, you're a little different to the thin lath of a fellow you were when you left home."
"You may say so," cried Dick; "I was a poor milksop then, and no mistake; but I've improved, and, you bet, I've learned a thing or two."
John was not quite so sure of the improvement. At least the stripling who had left his father's home was fresh and pure looking, but the man who had returned in his place was bloated and pimpled, and his once frank eyes now wandered furtively about.
"John's grown a fine fellow, hasn't he, Dick?" asked the mother, proudly.
"He ain't bad-looking, if that's what you mean, but he don't look up to snuff. No offence, Jack. I'll teach you a few wrinkles. Have a pipe, boy."