severely as to make her take all Mr. Bradshaw’s words and hints as too light censure for the careless way in which, to please her own child, she had allowed her two pupils to fatigue themselves with such long walks.  She begged hard to take her share of nursing.  Every spare moment she went to Mr. Bradshaw’s, and asked, with earnest humility, to be allowed to pass them with Elizabeth; and, as it was often a relief to have her assistance, Mrs. Bradshaw received these entreaties very kindly, and desired her to go upstairs, where Elizabeth’s pale countenance brightened when she saw her, but where Jemima sat in silent annoyance that her own room was now become open ground for one, whom her heart rose up against, to enter in and be welcomed.  Whether it was that Ruth, who was not an inmate of the house, brought with her a fresher air, more change of thought to the invalid, I do not know, but Elizabeth always gave her a peculiarly tender greeting; and if she had sunk down into languid fatigue, in spite of all Jemima’s endeavours to interest her, she roused up into animation when Ruth came in with a flower, a book, or a brown and ruddy pear, sending out the warm fragrance it retained from the sunny garden-wall at Chapel-house.

The jealous dislike which Jemima was allowing to grow up in her heart against Ruth was, as she thought, never shown in word or deed.  She was cold in manner, because she could not be hypocritical; but her words were polite and kind in purport; and she took pains to make her actions the same as formerly.  But rule and line may measure out the figure of a man; it is the soul that gives it life; and there was no soul, no inner meaning, breathing out in Jemima’s actions.  Ruth felt the change acutely.  She suffered from it some time before she ventured to ask what had occasioned it.  One day she took Miss Bradshaw by surprise, when they were alone together for a few minutes, by asking her if she had vexed her in any way, she was so changed.  It is sad when friendship has cooled so far as to render such a question necessary.  Jemima went rather paler than usual, and then made answer—­

“Changed!  How do you mean?  How am I changed?  What do I say or do different from what I used to do?”

But the tone was so constrained and cold, that Ruth’s heart sank within her.  She knew now, as well as words could have told her, that not only had the old feeling of love passed away from Jemima, but that it had gone unregretted, and no attempt had been made to recall it.  Love was very precious to Ruth now, as of old time.  It was one of the faults of her nature to be ready to make any sacrifices for those who loved her, and to value affection almost above its price.  She had yet to learn the lesson, that it is more blessed to love than to be beloved; and, lonely as the impressible years of her youth had been—­without parents, without brother or sister—­it was, perhaps, no wonder that she clung tenaciously to every symptom of regard, and could not relinquish the love of any one without a pang.