Ruth had rolled forward a comfortable chair, and stood beside it with shy, sweet look as her mother sat down and drew her down beside her. Sorrow had softened Mrs. Levice wonderfully; and looking for love, she wooed everybody by her manner.
“What were you saying of me?” she asked, keeping Ruth’s hand in hers and looking up at Kemp, who leaned against the mantel-shelf, his face radiant with gladness.
“We were saying that it will do you good to come out of this great house to our little one, till we find something better.”
Mrs. Levice looked across at Louis, who stood at the piano, his back half turned, looking over a book.
“It is very sweet to be wanted by you all now,” she said, her voice trembling slightly; “but I never could leave this house to strangers,—every room is too full of old associations, and sweet memories of him. Louis wants me to go down the coast with him soon, stopping for a month or so at Coronado. Go to your cottage meanwhile by yourselves; even I should be an intruder. There, Ruth, don’t I know? And when we come back, we shall see. It is all settled, isn’t it, Louis?”
He turned around then.
“Yes, I feel that I need a change of scene, and I should like to have her with me; you do not need her now.”
Ruth looked at his careworn face, and said with tender solicitude,—
“You are right, Louis.”
And so it was decided.