"Sit still till I come back. I will run downstairs and see if there is
any news," she coaxed in a soothing tone.
The household was gathered in the great room waiting and watching. The
old ladies by the hearth scarcely noticed one another. The judge sitting
apart half started up at the faint rustle of Ruth's approach, but
finding that it was no messenger bringing news, he sat down again with a
weary sigh, and his gaze went back to the other side of the river. His
appearance told how great his anxiety was. His rugged, homely face was
haggard and unshorn, and his rough dress was even more careless than
common. William Pressley arose and came forward to give Ruth a chair.
There was no visible change in him, his dress was as immaculate as it
always was. His manner was just as coldly implacable as it had been ever
since the quarrel; but then his temper never had anything to do with his
looks or his manners. No degree of uneasiness could ever make him forget
appearances or the smallest form of courtesy; and he would have thought
it a pitiable sort of man who could be moved by emotion to any kind of
irregularity.
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