Page:A Colonial Wooing.djvu/30

Rh it is out of reach, but must not pick it or put it on my kerchief. Mustn't indeed! I will." And with this vehement protest Ruth darted from the house, and before her parents could recover their astonishment, returned with an apron-full of scarlet autumn leaves and scattered them over the kitchen floor; then standing in front of her mother, who looked ill with fright, asked, "Would thee have the whole world steeped in dust and dinginess; never a blue sky or a rosy sunset? Always clouds above and bare ground beneath? Oh, for the gay cousins that we have in England, for which thee feel so much concern! How I would like to see them!" And again away she flew like a frightened bird, seeing that at last she had overtaxed her father's patience and he was about to speak. An hour later, when he came in, evidently with a fixed determination to sternly rebuke his step-daughter, he found her demure as the soberest "Friend" in all Chesterfield, and with "No Cross, No Crown," lying opened upon her lap. She looked up with the merest trace of a smile lighting her face, and 24