The pensive beauty of the mild Indian Summer flooded hill and valley now. Where the sombre shades of green had erst clothed the forest, brilliant pennons of flame-colored, and crimson-dyed, and paler tints, shading into amber, and gray, and russet brown, lit up the woods with their bright-hued splendor.
Clemence, with her little charge, loved to wander through these places, that nature had clothed in rarest beauty for her worshippers. This was her favorite season of the year. Sometimes a foreboding oppressed this young dreamer that it might be her last hours of earthly enjoyment. She used often to look with pity into the child's face, where a sweet seriousness lingered, and it gave her sympathetic heart pain to think that the child should be old beyond her years. Indeed, there was the same wistfulness about the younger face that we have noticed about our heroine, and there was a gravity of expression about the tender mouth that told of a capacity for suffering unusual in one so young. It was apparent that, like the tried friend who toiled daily to sustain her, sorrow had early marked the orphan girl for its own. If misfortune or death were to overtake this fragile creature who stood between her and the storms of life, what would become of Ruth?
There were trials, and temptations, and dangers lurking in the path of the innocent child. Would she surmount them all bravely, and achieve victory in the battle of life?
This thought haunted, continually, the mind of the young teacher, and gave her hourly pain. There was but little to attach her to life, and only for this child's love she would have longed for the hour when God should call her home. As it was, the girl had not sufficient faith to leave all in His hands. With her sad experience of life, she dreaded all that might come to her darling. And hope had nearly died out in her heart.
Seated by the little grave, which was the shrine at which she poured out her daily petitions, Clemence thought despondingly of the past, and how little there seemed for her in the future, to which every one around her looked forward with such eager anticipation.
The dreary waste stretched out unsmiling, and inexpressibly desolate. The path of duty seemed straight and thorny.
While she sat, sorrowful, the child, who had been watching her with tender eyes, came and knelt before her. "Let me come and sit with you," she pleaded, laying her soft, rounded cheek upon the two hands folded idly in Clemence's lap. "I cannot play while I know you are grieving on my account."
"Why," asked Clemence, arousing with a start from her reverie, "what put that odd fancy into your head, little one?"
"Oh, I have known it for a long time," said Ruth, earnestly. "Although I never have told you before, I realize more and more every day how much you deny yourself for my sake. I owe you more than I can ever hope to repay."
"There, there, child," said Clemence, astonished at her vehemence. "What on earth has put all this into your head? Who told you about self-denial? Have any of these rough villagers been seeking to wound you by speaking of your state of dependence?"