"Now leave the room, Ruth."
Ruth did not stay, she was too glad to be gone at once.
The next day, nor the next, did Mrs. Grey speak of the past, and all things went on as they were wont to do. But on the third day, when the first course was gone, a dish that had been in the green-house room was put near her. It was just in the same state in which Ruth had left it. Ruth could not bear the sight of it, so she got up and ran out of the room.
"Poor Ruth!" said Mr. Grey to his wife, "she feels this so much! and to a child like her, who can feel, I think that your plan seems the best way to cure her."
It was the best way. Ruth felt all this much more than she would have felt the stroke of a whip: she felt it in her mind.
For a long time, for months and for years, she could not bear to see a jam cake or a turn-out, nor one of the things like those that had been in the green-house room. When she did see them, she felt a sting of mind that gave her a great deal of pain. Ruth had one young friend who knew what she had done; and this friend had so much love for Ruth, so much real grief for what she knew Ruth felt, that when young friends came to play with her, she took care to beg that there should not be jam cake.
THE AIR.
What is air? Look up and look round; there is air, though it is not to be seen. It fills all things. The glass jug which seems to be quite void is still full of air.
