Page:Ruth of the U.S.A. (IA ruthofusa00balm).pdf/30

 later, in England had become the possessor of great power and wealth in Chicago but instead of being at all spoiled by it, he was a clean, brave young man—a soldier having offered himself and having fought in the most perilous of all services and having fought well; a soldier who was a little flushed and excited about being home again among his people and who had spoken friendlily to her.

Ruth reached her room, only remembering the pencil boxes when she dropped them from her muff upon her table. The solid sound they made—not rattling as pencils should—caused her to tear the pasted paper from about one box. She had bought not even pencils but only boxes packed with paper. Now she had the cover off and was staring at the contents. A new fifty dollar bank note was on top. Underneath that was another; below that, another—others. They made a packet enclosed in a strip such as banks use and this was denominated $1,000.00. There were twenty fifty-dollar notes in this packet.

Ruth lifted it out; she rubbed her eyes and lifted out another packet labeled one thousand dollars made up of ten bills of one hundred dollars each; on the bottom were five one hundred dollar notes, not fastened together. The box held nothing else.

Her pulses pounded and beat in her head; her hands touching the money went hot, went cold. This money was real; but her obtaining it must be a mistake. The box must have been the beggar's bank which he had kept beside him; therefore his money had no meaning for her. But now the cripple's insistence upon halting her, his