Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell Page B

before we have recognised and realised its existence.
Ruth was innocent and snow-pure. She had heard of falling in love,
but did not know the signs and symptoms thereof; nor, indeed, had
she troubled her head much about them. Sorrow had filled up her days,
to the exclusion of all lighter thoughts than the consideration of
present duties, and the remembrance of the happy time which had been.
But the interval of blank, after the loss of her mother and during
her father's life-in-death, had made her all the more ready to value
and cling to sympathy—first from Jenny, and now from Mr Bellingham.
To see her home again, and to see it with him; to show him (secure
of his interest) the haunts of former times, each with its little
tale of the past—of dead and gone events!—No coming shadow threw
its gloom over this week's dream of happiness—a dream which was too
bright to be spoken about to common and indifferent ears.

Chapter IV - Treading in Perilous Places
*
    Sunday came, as brilliant as if there were no sorrow, or death, or
guilt in the world; a day or two of rain had made the earth fresh and
brave as the blue heavens above. Ruth thought it was too strong a
realisation of her hopes, and looked for an over-clouding at noon;
but the glory endured, and at two o'clock she was in the Leasowes,
with a beating heart full of joy, longing to stop the hours, which
would pass too quickly through the afternoon.
    They sauntered through the fragrant lanes, as if their loitering
would prolong the time, and check the fiery-footed steeds galloping
apace towards the close of the happy day. It was past five o'clock
before they came to the great mill-wheel, which stood in Sabbath
idleness, motionless in a brown mass of shade, and still wet with
yesterday's immersion in the deep transparent water beneath. They
clambered the little hill, not yet fully shaded by the overarching
elms; and then Ruth checked Mr Bellingham, by a slight motion of
the hand which lay within his arm, and glanced up into his face to
see what that face should express as it looked on Milham Grange,
now lying still and peaceful in its afternoon shadows. It was a
house of after-thoughts; building materials were plentiful in the
neighbourhood, and every successive owner had found a necessity
for some addition or projection, till it was a picturesque mass of
irregularity—of broken light and shadow—which, as a whole, gave a
full and complete idea of a "Home." All its gables and nooks were
blended and held together by the tender green of the climbing roses
and young creepers. An old couple were living in the house until it
should be let, but they dwelt in the back part, and never used the
front door; so the little birds had grown tame and familiar, and
perched upon the window-sills and porch, and on the old stone cistern
which caught the water from the roof.
    They went silently through the untrimmed garden, full of the
pale-coloured flowers of spring. A spider had spread her web over
the front door. The sight of this conveyed a sense of desolation to
Ruth's heart; she thought it was possible the state entrance had
never been used since her father's dead body had been borne forth,
and, without speaking a word, she turned abruptly away, and went
round the house to another door. Mr Bellingham followed without
questioning, little understanding her feelings, but full of
admiration for the varying expression called out upon her face.
    The old woman had not yet returned from church, or from the weekly
gossip or neighbourly tea which succeeded. The husband sat in the
kitchen, spelling the psalms for the day in his Prayer-book, and
reading the words out aloud—a habit he had acquired from the double
solitude of his life, for he was deaf. He did not hear the quiet
entrance of the pair, and they were struck with the sort of ghostly
echo which seems to haunt half-furnished and uninhabited houses. The
verses he was reading were the following:
Why art thou so vexed, O my soul: and why art