Across the way the wedding was in full blast, but neither of them cared to go. Ruth turned back for a last glimpse of the garden and its gentle mistress, but she was gone, and the light from her candle streamed out until it rested upon a white hollyhock, nodding drowsily.
To Ruth, walking in the starlight with her lover, it seemed as if the world had been made new. The spell was upon Winfield for a long time, but at last he spoke.
“If I could have chosen my mother,” he said, simply, “she would have been like Miss Ainslie.”
XV. The Secret and the Dream
Ruth easily became accustomed to the quiet life at Miss Ainslie's, and gradually lost all desire to go back to the city. “You're spoiling me,” she said, one day. “I don't want to go back to town, I don't want to work, I don't want to do anything but sit still and look at you. I didn't know I was so lazy.”
“You're not lazy, dear,” answered Miss Ainslie, “you were tired, and you didn't know how tired you were.”
Winfield practically lived there. In the morning, he sat in the garden, reading the paper, while Ruth helped about the house. She insisted upon learning to cook, and he ate many an unfamiliar dish, heroically proclaiming that it was good. “You must never doubt his love,” Miss Ainslie said, “for those biscuits—well, dear, you know they were—were not just right.”
The amateur cook laughed outright at the gentle criticism. “They were awful,” she admitted, “but I'm going to keep at it until I learn how.”
The upper part of the house was divided into four rooms, with windows on all sides. One of the front rooms, with north and east windows, was Miss Ainslie's, while the one just back of it, with south and east windows, was a sitting-room.