Many changes had taken place during their enforced exile from the world. Eurie Mitchell had married and gone, and Flossy Shipley had married and gone, both of them to new homes and new friends, and both of them had, by their departure, made great gulfs in Ruth’s life. They had written her characteristic notes along with their wedding cards. Eurie’s ran thus:
“Dear Ruth—I fancy you bearing it like a martyr, as I know you can. I always said you would make a magnificent martyr, but I am so sorry that the experiment has come in such a shape that we can’t look on and watch its becomingness. Also, I am very sorry that you can not be present to see me ‘stand up in the great big church without any bonnet!’ which is the way in which our baby characterizes the ceremony. In fact, I am almost as sorry about that as I am that father should have been out of town during the first few days of Judge Erskine’s illness, and so given that Dr. Bacon a chance to be installed. Father doesn’t happen to agree with him on some points, and the care of small-pox patients is one thing in which they totally differ. However, your father is going on finely, so far, I hear, and you know, my dear, that Dr. Bacon is very celebrated; so be as brave as you can and it will all come out right, I dare say. In fact we know it will. Isn’t that a comfort? There are ever so many things that I might say if I could, but you know I was never able to put my heart on paper. So imagine some of the heart-thoughts which beat for you, while I sign myself for the last time,
“Eurie Mitchell.”
Ruth laughed over this note. “It is so exactly like her,” she murmured. “I wonder if she will ever tone down?”
Flossy’s was smaller, daintier, delicately perfumed with the faintest touch of violets, and read:
“Dear, Precious Friend—‘The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.’ How safe you are! ‘Oh, thou afflicted, tossed with tempest and not comforted! Behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colors; with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord, thy Redeemer.’ Blessed Jesus, do for Ruth ‘As thou hast said.’ This is Flossy Shipley’s prayer for her dear friend, whom she will love and cherish forever.”
Over this note Ruth shed hot tears. She was touched and comforted and saddened; she realized more than ever before what a spiritual loss Flossy’s going was to be to her, and she did not come closer to the One who would have made amends for all losses.
Perhaps she had never felt the dreariness of her existence more than she did on a certain evening, some weeks after the household had settled into its accustomed routine of life, which was like and yet utterly unlike what that life had been before the invasion of disease.
It was dark outside, and the rain was falling heavily; there was little chance of relief from monotony by the arrival of guests. Ruth wandered aimlessly through the library in search of a book that she felt willing to read, and, finding none, turned at last to the sitting-room, where Judge Erskine and his wife were sitting. Secure in the prospect of rain, and therefore seclusion, he had arrayed himself in dressing-gown and slippers, and was resting his scarred, seamed face among the cushions of the easy-chair, enjoying a luxury, which was none other than that of having his gray hair carefully and steadily brushed, the brush passing with the regularity of a sentinel on its slow, soothing track, guided by his wife’s hand, while Judge Erskine’s face bore unmistakable signs of reposeful rest. There was that in the scene which irritated Ruth almost beyond control. She passed quickly through the room, into the most remote corner of the alcove, which was curtained off from the main room, and afforded a retreat for the piano, and a pretext for any one who desired to use it and be alone. It was not that she had ever waited thus upon her father; she had never thought of approaching him in this familiar way. Even had she dared to do so, their make-up was, after all, so utterly dissimilar that, what was evidently a sedative to him, would have driven his daughter fairly wild. To have any one, however dear and familiar, touch her hair, draw a brush through it, would have irritated her nerves in her best days. She thought of it then, as she sat down in the first seat that she reached, after the friendly crimson curtains hid her from those two—sat with her chin resting in her two listless hands, and tried to wonder what she should do if she were forced to lie among the cushions of that easy-chair in there, and have that woman brush her hair.
“I should choke her, I know I should!” she said, with sudden fierceness; and then, with scarcely less fierceness of tone and manner added: “I hope it will never be my awful fate to have to be taken care of by her, or to have to endure the sight of her presence about any one I love. Oh, what is the matter with me! I grow wicked every hour. What will become of me?”