That might be natural enough, however. Even Mrs. MacCall admitted that Ruth was growing up.
"And I should like to know if we're not all growing up?" Agnes demanded, overhearing Mrs. MacCall repeat the above statement. Agnes had come down into the kitchen on Monday morning, ready for school.
"I should say we were! Ruth won't let me 'hoo-hoo' from the window to Neale for him to come and take my books. Says it isn't ladylike, and that I am too old for such tomboy tricks. So," and the roguish beauty whispered this, "I am under the necessity of climbing the back fence into Mr. Con Murphy's yard to get at Neale," and she ran off to put this threat into immediate execution.
CHAPTER XX
BEARDING THE LION
Luke Shepard went back to Grantham with Cecile in a mood that caused his sympathetic sister to speak upon mere commonplace subjects and scarcely mention the friends with whom they had spent the week. She knew Luke was plowing deep waters, and whether his judgment was wise or not, she respected his trouble.
The young man believed he had no right to present his case to Ruth Kenway if he had no brighter prospects for a future living than what he could make by his own exertions. Necessarily for some years after leaving college this would be meager. Without his elderly friend's promised aid how could he ask the oldest Corner House girl to share his fortunes?
As for tying her to a long engagement—the most heart-breaking of all human possibilities—the young man would not do it. He told himself half a hundred times an hour that the thought could merely be born into his mind of his own selfishness.
The Kenways had suffered enough in poverty in the past. He knew all about their hard life after Mr. Kenway had died, for Ruth had told him of it herself. Until Luke could get into business after his college days were ended and make good, he would have little to offer Ruth Kenway of either luxuries or comforts.