"He had misfortunes and losses, Ruth; and his family are coming here to live in furnished lodgings. But I can meet with none. Can you help me?"
Ruth looked right and left, as if she expected to see some one coming up or down the road with the news of lodgings in their hands, and was silent. At last a light seemed to break over her rosy face. "If they don't mind being next to our shop, I believe I do know the very place. Will you come and see? The house belongs to my mother-in-law, and she has got it nicely furnished. It is not far; will you come, Miss Cox?"
"Is it quite near, Ruth? for I must be back for the children's dinner, and I am so tired."
"You can take a tram from the Three Stars, and that will get you home in no time. It is not far, Miss Cox."
"Well, I will come, Ruth; but I don't feel sure about engaging the lodgings. Your mother-in-law won't mind my looking at them?"
"Oh no, ma'am, not a bit. She was an old servant, you know, of some real gentry at Whitelands, and the old lady died last fall twelvemonth, and left mother—I always calls her mother—a nice little sum and some real valuable furniture."
"Oh! then she won't take children," said Miss Cox despairingly. "She won't take boys?"
"That she will, if you like the apartments; there won't be no difficulties," said Ruth in a reassuring voice. "You see, my Frank's father died when he was an infant, and mother went back to her old place, where she lived till two years ago, when the mistress died. Then she took this little business for Frank, and the house next. It is quite a private house, and was built by a gentleman. She thought she should be near us and help us on a bit, and so she has. And she put the furniture in it, and has added a bit here and there; and she let it all last winter to the curate and his mother; and here we are, Miss Cox. Look straight before you."
Miss Cox looked straight before her as she was told, and there, at the end of the road, stood a neat white house with a pretty good-sized baker's shop on the lower floor, and two windows above. There was a wing with a bake-house, and then a tall elm tree, left of its brethren which had once stood there in a stately group, either by accident or by design, and given their name to the locality—Elm Fields.
"There's my Frank at the door," Ruth said, nodding; "he wonders what I am come back for."