“I could be a companion—”
“People who want companions are old, or gouty, or mad; invariably disagreeable, or why have they to advertise for a friend? I think I see you shut up with a trying old lady, combing the lap-dog’s hair, and winding wool! You wouldn’t be a very agreeable companion, Ruthans dear. Better make the best of things, and stay where you are.”
Ruth made no further protest, but her lips tightened with an expression of determination. Her mind being made up, she was not easily swayed from her purpose. She decided to talk to her mother on the subject on the following morning.
Chapter Two.
An Evening at Home.
The father of Ruth and Mollie Farrell had died when the latter was two years old, leaving his wife but a few hundred pounds with which to support herself and her children. She was a pretty, winsome creature, the sort of woman who attracts sympathy and love, but a most difficult person to help.
Friends came forward with suggestions and offers of assistance, and Mrs Farrell thanked them ardently, and wept, and agreed to all that they said. In words, she was ready to undertake any exertion, however arduous; but when it came to deeds, she was so weak, so incapable, so hopelessly confused, that the school, the boarding-house, and the home for Indian children ended successively in failure.
At the end of three years her scanty capital was almost exhausted; but at this critical moment the Fates—which seem to take special care of the helpless ones of the earth—sent Ernest Connor to play the part of rescuer. He was a round stone in a square hole, that is to say, a student by nature, who, by the exigencies of fortune, found himself doomed to a business life, wherein he was a painstaking but consistent failure.