[CHAPTER V.]
AUNT RUTH.
"NOW, Nellie, my dear," said Aunt Ruth, as they were seated together at work in the drawing room the next morning, "tell me all about them at home."
Nellie looked up in her aunt's face—a face still young for the actual age; a face that had lived through seas of suffering, but which was the index of a heart that rested now, and ever had rested, on the Rock of Ages.
"How can I begin to tell you, dear aunt?"
"Anything will be welcome, darling; but first your dear papa."
"I think he is just as usual," answered Nellie. "He always is just the same."
Aunt Ruth smiled. "Happy for you he is, dear."
Nellie looked thoughtfully out of the window into the sunny garden, and then she added, "We think him rather more grey, Aunt Ruth, since uncle's illness and death. I fear he will never wholly get over that."
"No, dear, I am afraid not," answered Miss Arundel, a look of pain crossing her face, but this was quickly followed by a look of peace as she glanced towards the blue sky.