"Uncle need take no
trouble in the matter. I will do all that is necessary."
A woman must be deeply in love before she likes to hear the note of
ownership in a man's voice when speaking of herself. Ruth was not at all
in love--in that way--although she did not yet know that she was not.
The delicate roses of her cheeks deepened suddenly to the tint of the
rich red ones which she held again in her hands. Her blue eyes darkened
with revolt, and she gave William a clear, level look, throwing up her
head. Then her soft heart smote her, and her gentle spirit reproached
her. She believed William Pressley to be a good man, and she was ever
ready to feel herself in the wrong. She got up in a timid flurry and
went to the door and stood a moment looking out at the sun-lit river.
Presently she quietly returned, and shyly pausing behind William's
chair, rested her hand on the back of it. There was a timid apology in
the gesture. She was thinking only of her own shortcomings. Had she been
critical of him or even observant, she would have seen that there was
something peculiarly characteristic in the very way that he handled his
knife and fork; a curious, satisfied self-consciousness in the very
lift of his wrists which seemed to say that this, and no other, was the
correct manner of eating, and that he disapproved of everybody else's
manner.
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