Old lady Andrews was greatly interested about baby, and we gossiped of her in a delightful way for half an hour.
"It pleases me very much, Ruth," she said at last, "to see how motherly you are. I never had any doubt about you at all except that I wondered whether you could really mother a baby. I knew you would love it, and be kind, of course; but babies ought to have motherliness if they are really to thrive."
I flushed with pleasure, and asked if she meant that she had thought me cut out for an old maid.
"If I did," she answered, with that smile of hers which always makes me want to kiss her on the spot, "I shall never think so again. You've the genuine mother-instinct."
She looked at me a moment as if questioning with herself.
"The truth is," she went on, as if she had made up her mind to say the whole, "you have been for years making an intellectual interest do instead of real love, and of course your manner showed it."
I could not ask her what she meant, though I only half understood, and I wished to hear more. She grew suddenly more serious, and spoke in a lower tone.
"Ruth," she asked, "I am an old woman, and I am fond of you. May I say something that may sound impertinent?"
Of course I told her she might say anything, and that I knew she could not be impertinent. I could not think what was coming. She leaned forward, and put her thin hand on mine, the little Tennant hand with its old-fashioned rings.
"It is just this, Ruth. Be careful whom you marry. I'm so afraid you'll marry somebody out of charity. At least don't think of being a parson's wife."