"I shall be happy when I see you quite yourself again, Ruth. Come back to us soon, dear."
"I will, father; in the spring I will come home again for good, I promise you," and so Ruth returned for a time to The Hold.
"I am glad you are back again, Ruth," Miss Carne, who had been down several times to see her, said. "I told you not to hurry yourself, and I would have done without you for another month, but you know I am really very glad to have you back again. Mary managed my hair very well, but I could not talk to her as I do to you."
Ruth had not been many hours in the house before she learnt from her fellow-servants that Mr. Gulston had been over two or three times since the shooting party, and that the servants in general had an opinion that he came over to see Miss Carne.
"It's easy to see that with half an eye," one of the girls said, "and I think Miss Margaret likes him too, and no wonder, for a properer-looking man is not to be seen; but I always thought she would have married her cousin. Every one has thought so for years."
"It's much better she should take the sailor gentleman," one of the elder women said. "I am not saying anything against Mr. Ronald, who is as nice a young gentleman as one would want to see, but he is her cousin, and I don't hold to marriages among cousins anyhow, and especially in a family like ours."
"I think it is better for us not to talk about it at all," Ruth said, quietly; "I don't think it right and proper, and it will be quite time enough to talk about Miss Margaret's affairs when we know she is engaged."
The others were silent for a minute after Ruth's remark, and then the under-housemaid, who had been an old playmate of Ruth's, said:
"You never have ideas like other people, Ruth Powlett. It is a funny thing that we can't say a word about people in the house without being snapped up."
"Ruth is right," the other said, "and your tongue runs too fast, Jane. As Ruth says, it will be quite time enough to talk when Miss Margaret is engaged; till then the least said the better."