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 her feet, she sang, in her own sweet, peculiar way a few stanzas that seemed fitting to the occasion and then a long, unbroken silence ensued.

Mother and daughter were alike oblivious to Matthew Watson's presence, and he would surely have interrupted Ruth had he dared, when she was singing. As it was, his subsequent scolding about the scandal brought upon him and his house by Ruth's conduct was spent upon his patient wife.

The parting was a painful one, and many were the neighbors that gathered at the Watson house when, seated in her cousin Robert's wagon, she commenced her long journey. Many a neighbor, critical as they had been in times past, shed an honest tear as she passed down the winding lane and was gone.

Matthew Watson looked more stern and forbidding than ever, and was indisposed to converse with any one. The truth was, he had been baffled at many points and his importance lessened, he feared, even in his