“O Mother Amy! That is too bad! Thee must forgive my inattention.”
“It is nothing, of course; there was no especial reason why thee should have come, but I think she would have liked to speak with thee again.”
Ruth glanced at Uncle Fritz, and said nothing. What could she say, since till that moment she had quite forgotten the existence of friend Barbara Fletcher?
Uncle Fritz seemed, also, strangely unmindful of people’s prejudices, for he sauntered to the window, whistling the very gayest and most worldly of operatic airs. Amy Kinsolving looked anxiously toward her daughter, fearing she would reprimand the gentleman for his lack of taste; but she need not have feared, though Ruth’s fearless tongue had corrected more than one such offence, swift on its commission.
Since Ruth did not object, and seemed, indeed, to be lost in some happy thoughts of her own, Grandmother Amy softly sighed in her relief. Aloud she said:
“I need not ask thee if the children are doing as they should. I see by thy face that there is nothing amiss; but, if Fritz does not object, I should like to hear thee read the home letters now, daughter.”
“The letters?” asked Ruth. She had forgotten them along with Barbara Fletcher! Again she shot that funny glance of hers “Fritzy Nunky’s” way, and this time a very pretty pinkish color crept up into her cheeks. “Mother! thee will think I am a heartless girl; but I had forgotten the letters, too. I have not read them.”
“No, I do not think thee heartless—but please to read them now,” answered Mother Amy, with a peculiar smile.
And with her cheeks brighter than ever, Ruth opened the two letters. “I’ll glance through them first, mother; thee knows I like to do so.” For this aunt of many tribulations had learned that there were some happenings which even her honest tongue would best withhold from the gentle old mistress of The Snuggery. If she had told Mother Amy quite all that went on in her beloved home, perhaps her recovery would not have been as rapid or as thorough as it had been.
Mrs. Kinsolving and Uncle Fritz fell into conversation, while Ruth extracted the sting, as it were, from the home letters before she shared them with the others. But, after awhile, it seemed even to these two patient souls as if this proceeding was one of infinite labor and thought, judging from the time it consumed; and they turned from the window through which they had been watching the play of some little ones upon the lawn, to inquire the reason.