An easel stood near her with a box of paints and brushes, and a half-finished painting was before her, a landscape scene, with a cosy country house, an old mill, a brook, and a valley stretching away in the distance.
Suddenly her eyes were raised from her work, and rested upon the canvas.
"Dear, dear old Brookside! how I long to see you once again, and yet I dare not go, even though I should have to beg my bread.
"Not one word in all these long, weary, wretched years have I heard from those whom I love so dearly, and deserted to become the wife of—a scoundrel!
"Heaven forgive me that rash act; and forgive me for bringing sorrow upon my parents and poor Kent; but I was fascinated by that wretch—yes, fascinated, as though by a snake, for it was not love I felt, as now I hate him—no, no, I should not say that of the dead, of the father of my children," and she dropped her face in her hands and burst into tears.
Thirteen years have passed away since the reader last beheld her who sits there sobbing like a child, and the once beautiful girl of eighteen, pretty Ruby Raymond, the miller's daughter, has sadly changed in all that time.
Almost from the moment that she left her lovely, happy home, deserting her parents, and flying from the love of honest, brave Kent Lomax, her miseries had begun; and, too proud to return to dear old Brookside, though deserted by her husband, whom she afterward had heard was dead, she struggled on to support herself and her two children.
Not a word had she heard from her parents, and she would not write to them, fearing a rebuff.
Not a word had she heard from Kent Lomax, and, after all that she had done to break his heart, she would not seek his aid in her distress.
She had sewed, embroidered, and then taken up painting as a means of support; but her income was small, and she had to live very humbly.