Ruth was amazed at the suppressed fury of her tones, and at her eyes which, but a moment before dim with weeping, now blazed with indignation. Evidently the child had passed through a severe mental strain.
"Don't, dear," she said gently. "No one could be so cruel as to want to speak against your father. I am glad you love him so dearly; he can always help you. You will not want to disappoint him in any way, you know."
The girl looked at her searchingly as one startled. This was evidently a new thought; it took hold of her heart. A softened light came into her unusually expressive eyes and after a moment she said very gently:--
"No one ever said anything to me like that, before. It helps."
They made great strides toward intimacy even in that first morning. So great that when Ruth, pitying the girl's loneliness and evident dread of the people by whom she was surrounded, proposed that she send for her to come and take dinner with Mrs. Roberts and herself, she caught at the suggestion with an eagerness which showed what a relief it was to her; and then almost immediately demurred.
"But I ought not to presume in that way. I am certain the Madame will think so. Will not your friend think it very strange in me, a stranger, to intrude upon her home?"
"Wait until you see her," Ruth said, smiling. "Mrs. Roberts and I are very old friends, and I am almost as much at home in her house as I am in my own."
As she spoke, she felt a sudden stricture at her heart over those commonplace words. Was she not in these later days almost more at home in Flossy's house than in her own?
"I think I must not go, Mrs. Burnham," she said. "I suppose I ought not to wish, or even be willing to go; I am sure Madame Sternheim will be shocked at the idea. I am in deep mourning, you know, and my loss is so recent."
Unconsciously the child had imitated the prim decorum of her Mentor, and it had changed her entire face.
Ruth leaned forward impulsively and kissed her, while she spoke with a smile:--
"Dear child, be yourself, and not Madame Sternheim. Adopt me, will you, and let me attend to the decorum part, and all the rest. Mrs. Roberts is quite alone, save for me; her husband is away on a business trip, and her children have scattered for the vacation; so we shall be very quiet, we three; and there is no reason in the world why you should not come to us. I want you to know Mrs. Roberts; she is anxious to see you, and would have come with me this morning, if she had not thought it better that you and I should make each other's acquaintance first. As for you, you will love her the first time you look at her. Shall I speak to Madame Sternheim myself about it?"