“That is a very insolent young man,” said Aunt Rachel, as Reuben threw his hurried greeting over his shoulder in the dusk.

“Indeed, aunt,” the girl answered, a little more boldly than she would have dared to speak had the light been clearer-“indeed, aunt, you are quite mistaken about him, and I don’t understand why you should speak of Mr. Gold and his uncle as you do.”

She cared less what Rachel thought or said of Reuben’s uncle, though she had always had a friendly and admiring friendship for the old solitary, than she cared what was thought and said of Reuben.  But it was easier to champion the two together than to defend her lover alone.

“You are a child,” said Aunt Rachel, composedly.  “What do you know of the opposite sex?”

The question was obviously outside the range of discussion, but it silenced Ruth for the moment.  The elder woman presumed upon her triumph, and continued: 

“Confidence is natural to youth.  That is an axiom I have frequently heard fall from the lips of my dear mistress.  As you grow older you will grow less positive in your opinions, and will be careful to have a solid foundation for them.  Now I know these people, and you do not.”

“My dear aunt,” said Ruth, in protest, “I have known Mr. Gold ever since I could walk.”

“Of which Mr. Gold are we speaking?” demanded Rachel.

“It is true of both of them,” Ruth answered.  “Neither of them would harm a fly, or go a hair’s-breadth from the truth for all the world.  They are the best men I have ever known.”

“Niece Ruth!” said Rachel, stopping short in her walk, and bringing Ruth to a halt also, “upon the only occasion, since my return to Heydon Hay, on which I have found myself in the society of Mr. Ezra Gold, I took you into my confidence with respect to him.  That is to say, I took you into my confidence as much as I have ever taken anybody.  Mr. Ezra Gold is a mean and hypocritical person.  Mr. Ezra Gold is a person who would not stop at any act of baseness or cruelty.  Mr. Ezra Gold is a villain.”

All this came from the old maid’s lips with a chill and prim precision, which troubled her hearer more than any heat or violence could have done.  But the old man’s face and figure were before her with a wonderful vivid clearness.  The stoop was that of fatigue, and yet it had a merciful mild courtesy in it too, and the gray face was eloquent of goodness.

“I can’t believe it!” cried the girl, warmly.  “Dear aunt, there must have been some terrible mistake.  I am sure he is a good man.  You have only to look at him to know that he is a good man.”

“A whited sepulchre,” said Aunt Rachel, walking on again.  She had kept her mittened hand upon the girl’s arm throughout the pause in their walk, and her very touch told her that Ruth was wounded and indignant.  “What I say, I say of my own knowledge.  He is a deliberate and a cruel villain.”

The girl contained herself and was silent.  In a little while she began to think with an almost tragic sense of pity of the withered and lonely old maid who walked beside her.  She could pity thus profoundly because she could image herself in the like case; and though the figure she saw was far from being clear, her own terror of it and revolt from it told her how terrible it was.  If she and Reuben should part as her aunt and Ezra had parted-if she should ever come to think of Reuben as Aunt Rachel thought of Ezra!  The thought touched her with an arctic sense of cold and desolation.  She drew away from it with an inward shudder, and in that instant of realization she saw the little old maid’s personality really and truly standing in the middle of that bleak and frost-bound barrenness which she had dreamed as a possibility for herself.  For the first time she saw and understood, and anger and bewilderment were alike swept away in the warm rush of sympathetic pity.

The road was lonely, and Ruth, with both eyes brimming over, placed her arm about her aunt’s neck, and, stooping, kissed her on the cheek.  Two or three of the girl’s tears fell warm on Rachel’s face, and the old maid started away from her with a sudden anger, which was less unreasonable than it seemed.  She had of late years had an inclination to linger in talk about the theme of woman’s trust and man’s perfidy.  For Ruth, and for Ruth only, she had identified this theory of hers with a living man who was known to both, but she had never intended herself to be pitied.  She had never asked for pity in insisting that a righteous judgment should be dealt out to Ezra Gold.  She had cried in Ruth’s presence after her meeting with Ezra, but she had persuaded herself that her tears resulted from nothing more than the shock she felt at meeting an old repulsion.  And since she had got to believe this, it followed as a thing of course that Ruth ought also to have believed it.  The girl’s pity wounded her and shamed her.

“Thank you,” she said, in her chillest and primmest fashion, as she withdrew from Ruth’s embrace.  “I am not in want of pity.”  It was in her mind to tell Ruth to beware lest she herself should be in need of pity shortly; but she suppressed herself at considerable cost, and walked on stiffly and uncomfortably upright.

“I am very sorry, dear,” said Ruth.  “I did not mean to hurt you.”

But Rachel was very indignant, and it was only as she remembered the purloined letter that she consented to be appeased.  After all, she had taken the girl’s welfare in hand, and had interested herself so kindly in her niece’s behalf that she could not bear to be angry with her.  So she permitted a truce to be called, and on Ruth’s renewed apologies asked graciously that no more should be said about the matter.  They parted at the green door of the garden, and Rachel, walking homeward, pondered on one important question.  Ought she or ought she not to know the contents of the letter?  Without knowing them, how could she know exactly the length to which her niece and the intending worker of her ruin had already gone together?  It was necessary to know that, and she slid her hand into the bosom of her dress, and held the letter there, half resolving to read it on her arrival at home.  But although, as her theft of the letter itself would prove, her ideas of honor were quaint, they were strong.  She had constituted herself Niece Ruth’s guardian, and she meant to fulfil all her self-imposed duties to the letter, but there was one whose rights came before her own.  The letter should be opened in the presence of Ruth’s father, and the two authorities should consult together as to what might be done.

She cast about for a safe and unsuspicious resting-place for the letter, and at last decided upon the tea-caddy.

She placed it there, locked it up, and by the aid of a chair and a table stowed it securely away in the topmost corner of a tall cupboard.  Then, having hidden the key in the parlor chimney, she went to bed and to sleep, profoundly convinced that she had adopted the wisest of possible courses, and that Niece Ruth would be saved in the morning.

Meantime Aunt Rachel’s antique griefs being out of sight for Ruth, were out of mind.  She had her own affairs to think of, and found them at once pressing and delightful.  By this time Reuben would have read her note, and would know all it had to tell him.  When she thought how much it told him it seemed daring and strange, and almost terrible that she should have written it.  For it admitted that his letter had made her very happy; she was not quite sure that she had not written “very, very happy,” and wished it were to write again.  But here in the solitude of her own chamber she could kiss Reuben’s letter, and could rest it against her hot cheek in an ecstasy of fluttering congratulations.  How he looked, how he walked, how he talked, how he smiled, how he played!  How brave, how handsome, how altogether noble and good and gifted he was!  There was nobody to compare with him in Heydon Hay, and the young men of Castle Barfield were contemptible by comparison with him.  A human sun before whose rays other young women’s luminaries paled like rush-lights!  She seemed to have loved him always, and always to have been sure that he loved her; and yet it was wonderful to know it, and strange beyond strangeness to have told.  She fancied him in the act of reading her letter, and she kissed his as she did so.  Did he kiss hers?  Was he as glad as she was?  At these audacious fancies she hid herself and blushed.

Reuben all this while, and until a much later hour, was bewildering himself about the curious and old-fashioned missive he had discovered between the melodious pages of Manzini.  Over and over again he searched through the volume, though he had already turned it leaf by leaf and knew that there was no chance of his having overlooked anything.  Almost as often as he turned over the leaves of the music-book he reread the note he had taken from it.  He questioned himself as to the possibility of his having allowed Ruth’s note to fall, and mentally retraced his own fashion of taking up the book, and step by step the way in which he had carried it home.  He was sure that nothing could have escaped from its pages since he had laid hands upon it, and was confronted with a double mystery.  How had this time-stained epistle found its way into the pages, and how had the more modern missive be had fully expected to find there found its way out of it?

Suddenly an idea occurred to him which, though sufficiently far-fetched, seemed as if it might by chance explain the mystery.  Long and long ago a son of the house of Gold had married a daughter of the house of Fuller.  It was not outside the reasonable that Ruth should have had possession of this old document, in which a Ruth of that far-distant day had accepted a member of his own household.  She might have chosen to answer him by this clear enigma, but a sense of solemnity in the phrasing of the letter made him hope his guess untrue.  Desperate mysteries ask naturally for desperate guesses, and Reuben guessed right and left, but the mystery remained as desperate as ever.  His thoughts so harried him that at last, though it was late for Heydon Hay, he determined to go at once to Fuller’s house and ask for Ruth.

He slipped quietly down-stairs, and, leaving the door ajar, walked quickly along the darkened road, bearing poor Rachel’s long-lost letter with him; but his journey, as he might have expected, ended in blank disappointment.  Fuller’s house was dark.  He paced slowly home again, refastened the door, and went to bed, where he lay and tossed till broad dawn; and then reflecting that he would catch Ruth at her earliest household duties, fell asleep, and lay an hour or two beyond his usual time.

But if Reuben were laggard the innocent guardian dragon was early astir.  Fuller, in his shirt-sleeves and a broad-brimmed straw hat, was pottering about his garden with a wheelbarrow and a pair of shears.  He saw her at the open door of the garden, and sang out cheerily,

“Halloo, Miss Blythe!  Beest early afoot this mornin’.  I’m a lover o’ the mornin’ air myself.  Theer’s no time to my mind when the gardin-stuff looks half as well.  The smell o’ them roses is real lovely.”

He gave a loud-sounding and hearty sniff, and smacked his lips after it.  Rachel seemed to linger a little at the door.

“Come in,” said Fuller, “come in.  There’s nobody here as bites.  Beest come to see Ruth?  I doubt if her’s about as yet.  We ode uns bin twice as early risin’ as the young uns, nowadaysen.  Wait a bit and I’ll gi’e her a bit of a chi-hike.  Her’ll be down in a minute.”

“No,” said Rachel, “don’t call her.  I do not wish to see her yet.  It will be necessary to see her later on; but first of all I desire to speak to you alone.”  Fuller looked a little scared at this exordium, but Rachel did not notice him.  He had never known her so precise and picked in air and speech as she seemed to be that morning, and through all this a furtive air of embarrassment peeped out plainly enough for even him to become aware of it.  “May we sit down at this table?” she asked.  “I presume the chairs are aired already by the warm atmosphere of the morning?  There is no danger of rheumatism?”

“What’s up?” inquired Fuller, sitting down at once, and setting his shirt-sleeved arms upon the table.  “Theer’s nothin’ the matter, is theer?”

“You shall judge for yourself,” replied Rachel.  She drew a letter from her pocket, and covering it with her hand laid it on the table.  A distinct odor of tea greeted Fuller’s nostrils, and he noticed it even then.  “I presume that you are not unacquainted with the character of the Messrs. Gold?”

“It ’ud be odd if I warn’t acquynted with ’em,” said Fuller.  “I’ve lived i’ the same parish with ’em all my days.”

“That being so,” said Rachel, “you will be able to appreciate my feelings when I tell you that almost upon my first arrival here I discovered that the younger Gold was making advances to my niece Ruth.”

“Ah?” said Fuller, interrogatively.  “I don’t count on bein’ able to see no furder through a millstone than my neighbors, but I’ve been aweer o’ that for a day or two.”

“Ruth is motherless,” pursued Rachel, a little too intent upon saying things in a predetermined way to take close note of Fuller.  “A motherless girl in a situation of that kind is always in need of the guidance of an experienced hand.”

“Yis, yis,” assented Fuller, heartily.  “Many thanks to you, Miss Blythe, for it’s kindly meant, I know.”

“Last night,” said Rachel, “I made a discovery.”  There was nothing in the world of which she was more certain than she was of Fuller’s approving sanction.  Only a few minutes before she had had her doubts about it, and they had made her nervous.  She was so very serious that Fuller began to look grave.  But he was built of loyalty and unsuspicion; and though for a mere second a fear assailed him that the old lady was about to charge Reuben with playing his daughter false, he scouted the fancy hotly.  In the warmth thus gained he spoke more briskly than common.

“Drive along, ma’am.  Come to the root o’ the matter.”

“This letter,” said Rachel, taking Ruth’s answer to Reuben in both hands, “was written last night.  It is addressed in your daughter’s handwriting to Mr. Reuben Gold.”

“Tis, yis, yis,” said Fuller, impatiently, not knowing what to make of Rachel’s funereal gravity.

“It appeared to me, after long consideration, that the best and wisest course I could adopt would be to bring it to you.  I regard myself as being in a sense, and subject always to your authority, one of the child’s natural guardians.  If I did not view things in that light,” the old lady explained, making elaborate motions with her lips for the distinct enunciation of every word, “I should consider that I was guilty of a sinful neglect of duty.”

“Well,” said Fuller, “as to sinful.  But drive on, Miss Blythe.”

“It appeared to me, then,” continued Rachel, “that our plain duty would be to read this together, and to consult upon it.”

“Wheer does the letter come from?” Fuller demanded, with a look of bewilderment.

“I discovered it in the-”

“What!” cried the old fellow, jumping from his chair and staring at her across the table with red face and wrathful eyes.

“I discovered it,” replied Rachel, rising also and facing him with her head thrown back and her youthful eyes flashing, “I discovered it in the music-book which was left last night upon this table.  I saw it placed there clandestinely by my niece Ruth.”

“Be you mad, Miss Blythe?” asked Fuller, with a slow solemnity of inquiry which would have made the question richly mirthful to an auditor.  “Do you mean to tell me as you go about spyin’ after wheer my little wench puts her letters to her sweetheart?  Why, fie, fie, ma’am!  That’s a child’s trick, not a bit like a growd-up woman.”

Fuller was astonished, but Rachel’s amazement transcended his own.

“And you tell me, John Fuller, that you know the character of this man?”

“Know his character!” cried Fuller.  “Who should know it better nor me?  The lad’s well-nigh lived i’ my house ever sence he was no higher ’n my elber.  Know his character?  Ah!  Should think I did an’ all.  The cliverest lad of his hands and the best of his feet for twenty mile around-as full o’ pluck as a tarrier an’ as kindly-hearted as a wench.  Bar his Uncle Ezra, theer niver was a mon to match him in Heydon Hay i’ my time.  Know his character!” He was unused to speak with so much vigor, and he paused breathless and mopped his scarlet face with his shirt-sleeve, staring across his arm at Rachel meanwhile in mingled rage and wonder.

“His Uncle Ezra?” said Rachel, looking fixedly and scornfully back at him.  “His Uncle Ezra is a villain!”

For a second or two he stared at her with a countenance of pure amazement, and then burst into a sudden gurgle of laughter.  This so overmastered him that he had to cling to the table for support, and finally to resume his seat.  His jolly face went crimson, and the tears chased each other down his fat cheeks.  When he seemed to have had his laugh quite out, and sat gasping and mopping his eyes with his shirt-sleeve, a chance look at Rachel reinspired the passion of his mirth, and he laughed anew until he had to clip his wide ribs with his palms as if to hold himself together.  A mere gleam of surprise crossed the scorn and anger of Rachel’s face as she watched him, but it faded quickly, and when once it had passed her expression remained unchanged.

“Good-morning, Aunt Rachel,” cried Ruth’s fresh voice.  “You are early.”  Rachel turned briskly round in time to see Ruth disappear from a white-curtained upper window.  Fuller rose with a face of sudden sobriety, and began once more to mop his eyes.  In a mere instant Ruth appeared at the door running towards the pair with a face all smiles.  “Why, father,” she cried, kissing the old man on the cheek, “what a laugh!  You haven’t laughed so for a year.  What is the joke, Aunt Rachel?”

She saw at a glance that, whatever the jest might be, Aunt Rachel was no sharer in it.

“I know of no joke, Niece Ruth,” said the old lady, with mincing iciness.

“Theer’s summat serious at the bottom on it, but the joke’s atop, plain for annybody to see,” said Fuller.  “But Miss Bly the’s come here this mornin’ of a funny sort of a arrant, to my thinking, though her seems to fancy it’s as solemn a business as a burying.”

“What is the matter?” asked Ruth, looking from one to the other.  Some movement of Rachel’s eyes sent hers to the table, and she recognized her own letter in a flash.  She moved instinctively and laid her hand upon it.

“That’s it,” said her father, with a new gurgle. “’Twas your Aunt Rachel, my dear,” he explained, “as see you put it somewheer last night, an’ took care on it for you.”  Ruth turned upon the little old lady with a grand gesture, in which both hands were suddenly drawn down and backward until they were clinched together, crushing the letter between them behind her.  “Her comes to me this morning,” pursued Fuller, while the old woman and the young one looked at each other, “an’ tells me plump an’ plain as her wants t’ open this letter and read it, along with me.”

“Aunt Rachel!” said Ruth, with a sort of intense quiet, “how dare you?”

“I did nothing but my duty,” said Rachel.  “If I have exposed to you the character of these men in vain-”

“Exposed!  Exposed!” cried Fuller.  “What’s this here maggot about exposin’?  Who talks about exposin’ a lad like that?  The best lad i’ the country-side without a ’ception!”

“You tell me then,” said Rachel, turning upon him slowly, as if Ruth’s eyes had an attraction for her, and she could scarcely leave them-“you tell me then that this Reuben Gold has your approval in making approaches to your daughter?”

“Approval!” shouted Fuller.  “Yis.  I’ve seen ’em gettin’ fond on each other this five ’ear, and took a pleasure in it.  What’s agen the lad?  Nothin’ but the mumblin’ of a bumble-bee as an old maid’s got in her bonnet.  A spite agen his uncle is a thing as is understandable.”

“Indeed, sir,” said Aunt Rachel, with frigid politeness.  “Will you tell me why?”

“Well, no,” said Fuller.  “I’d rather I didn’t.  Look here.  Let’s have harmony.  I’m no hand at quarrelin’, even among the men, let alone among the petticuts.  Let’s have harmony.  The wench has got her letter back, and theer’s no harm done.  And if theer is, ye’d better fight it out betwigst ye.”  With this he turned his back and waddled a pace or two.  Then he turned a laughing face upon them, moving slowly on his axis.  “Mek it up,” he said, “mek it up.  Let’s have no ill blood i’ the family.  Nothin’ like harmony.”

Having thus delivered himself he rolled in-doors, and there sat down to his morning pipe.  But anger and laughter are alike provocative of thirst, and seeking a jug in the kitchen he took his way to the cellar, and there had a copious draught of small beer, after which he settled himself down in his arm-chair, prepared to make the best of anything which might befall him.

The quarrel from which he had withdrawn himself did not seem so easy to be made up as he had appeared to fancy.  Ruth and Rachel stood face to face in silence.  To the younger woman the offence which had been committed against her seemed intolerable, and it took this complexion less because of the nature of the act itself than because of its consequences.  It had mocked Reuben, and it had made her seem as if she were the mocker.

“You are angry, child!” said Rachel, at length.  “I was prepared for that.  But I was not prepared for your father’s acquiescence in the ruinous course upon which you have entered.”

“Ruinous course?” said Ruth.

“I repeat,” said the old lady, “the ruinous course upon which you have entered.  These men are villains.”

“Do they steal other people’s letters?” asked Ruth.

“They are villains,” repeated Aunt Rachel, ignoring this inquiry.  “Villains, cheats, deceivers.  You will rue this day in years to come.”  Then, with prodigious sudden stateliness, “I find my advice derided.  My counsels are rebuffed.  I wish you a good-morning.  I can entertain no further interest in your proceedings.”