"None came this way to-day, we could not tell."

"We are going to close the house to-morrow, Guy, so you need not come home to dinner. We intend going to the woods to find fresh air."

But Guy didn't like the idea; it sounded common, he thought. Every day he met a lot of women and their babies, with a parcel of brats following them, going over the river or somewhere. "Why can't you take a week each of you, and go to the country like other people?"

That, "like other people," was too much for Ruth, and she said, sharply: "We can't be what we are not. Beggars must not be choosers."

Guy replied in as sharp a tone that "some people liked to make a parade of their poverty," and finished his dinner in silence. This unfortunate affair threw a damper over the girls, but the children did not come within the shadow of the cloud. Ruth had a sudden angry impulse not to go at all, scarcely knowing why, as it would not spite her brother. But she could not yield to such a thought when the happiness of Agnes and the children was to be considered.

Agnes spoke very little after the occurrence, knowing what state of mind Ruth was in, but she sang in a low voice some of her sister's favorite hymns, and in a little while the cloud rolled away, the sun came out, and the storm was all over. By tea-time Guy and Ruth were as if nothing unpleasant had happened, but there was no allusion made to the pic-nic.

"I wonder how people feel who are going on an extended tour," said Agnes, as they filled their lunch baskets.

"That depends very much upon the people themselves," replied Ruth. "This little trip is giving us more real pleasure than some people would know in travelling all over the globe."

"Yes, I suppose so; it is the appreciation that is needed, and without that there can be no enjoyments."

Fortunately, for Guy, he did not see the party set out the next morning, or the shock might so completely have overcome him as to unfit him for any business whatever. But they waited until he had gone, and then they started with their baskets, trowel, and garden-fork.

"People will take us for herb-gatherers, and think these are our children," said Agnes, gaily.

"Shocking!" exclaimed Ruth, with mock earnestness.

They took the boat for several miles down the river, to the great delight of the children, especially Philip, whose keen eyes took in the smallest white speck of a sail, and then when they had climbed a very little hill, and gone down a big one, they were in the woods.

"What a delightful perfume! Isn't it charming!" exclaimed Agnes, delightedly, as she sat down by a tree to "enjoy herself." But the children who had been scampering about, declared there was a much nicer place not far off, and so Miss Agnes, who could imagine no scene more charming, very reluctantly consented to tear herself away.

The spot chosen by the children was indeed lovely. Perfectly level ground covered with the richest moss, out of which rose broad flat rocks, and along side of which, not many yards distant, ran a clear little stream on whose banks the feathery fern grew, and into which it dipped its graceful frond. On the other side of the stream the wood was more dense, but through it a broad path led to a bend in the river.

"We need go no farther," exclaimed both Ruth and Agnes. "Nothing could exceed this for loveliness and shade.

"By the river of Babylon there we sat down," and Agnes once more settled herself.

"There we hung our harps upon the willows," added Ruth, throwing her shawl on a branch overhead. "Now, Agnes, let us take it easy and make the most of the day, for such days will be like angel's visits."

"Well, suppose we rest first. Methinks I could forget myself in sleep."

Presently Ruth was accosted with, "I think I know now what I should do if I were rich."

"What?" she asked.

"Take sick people into the country. That is, if I could afford to keep a carriage. I have been thinking about it since yesterday."

Ruth knew what had brought it to her mind. Guy's picture of the women and their babies; sick, of course.

"Yes," she said. "Many of those who die every year might become strong and well again, if they could be taken from the close, stifling air of their wretched homes into that which is pure and fresh."

"Nothing could give greater pleasure than to have these poor, emaciated babies and wan-faced women look up at you with a smile, as if saying, 'O how this cheers us.' I wonder if it will ever be?"

"'Tis hard to tell," was the reply. "But suppose you had a carriage, your husband might object to your using it in this way."

"Then I should not use it at all." Here Agnes looked as if at that time rejecting its use.

Ruth laughed. "Wait, my dear, until you get it," she said. "Or before you give yourself away, it would be well to ask the gentleman, if, in case you owned such a thing, you could use it for such purposes."

"Not I indeed. No man ever finds me asking him such a question; what was _his_ would be mine. But I shall know, when I see the man, what manner of spirit he is of."

This occasioned another laugh, in which Agnes joined, and the two, banishing the thoughts of sick babies and pale-faced women, had a gay time. In the meantime, the children had scrambled over rocks to gather lichen, and dug holes deep enough to bury a kitten in, in their efforts to get moss; they had sailed little nut-sh.e.l.l boats down the stream, and in the many ways that children have enjoyed themselves. Everybody was hungry of course, so by the time Agnes was ready for her ferns, there were empty baskets in which to place them. But they read and talked before that, and walked through the woods on the other side out to the river, finding several beautiful plants on their way. Then at the last the ferns were gathered, and Agnes did wish they could have had more baskets. But Ruth informed her she might have gone home by herself if she had.

"Now that is my idea of enjoying oneself," said Agnes, as tired but very happy, she laid her head on her pillow.

"Yes, that is rational, sensible enjoyment," replied Ruth. "I wish sensible people would have the moral courage to act sensibly in this matter of rest and recreation. But it would shock a great many quite as much as it did Guy. Now I think it is well and often necessary for persons to have a more decided change, when their health requires it, and their means will allow. But this thing of going to fashionable resorts, for the sake of appearance, spending hundreds of dollars in mere dissipation; coming home envious and dissatisfied at the greater show made by others, instead of seeking change for the good of it, at the same time having their hearts drawn out after those less fortunate, is to me one of the greatest evils of the day."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Decoration]

CHAPTER X.

MISS SMITHERS COMES, AND A SURPRISE.

"WE had better engage Ann Smithers," said Ruth, after several old dresses had been cut down and made over for Martha. "She knows so well how to manage, and has patterns of the styles. With our help she can accomplish a great deal in a few days."

"Do you think we can get new dresses this Fall? We have worn these faithfully, you know?" inquired Agnes, as she examined and re-examined her suites.

"Not for some time, I fear; it takes a great deal to keep up a house these times. But it does not seem fair that you should give your money to me, Agnes. In future you had better keep what remains after paying for your board. It is not right to have you work hard and get so few clothes."

"Do you get any more, and haven't I as good a right to do without things as you?"

"No, it is different. I keep the house, and perhaps things are not managed well. I don't know. I get bewildered at times to know which is the best way. But now that we have Martha and she understands her work so well, I intend to give music lessons this Fall. That will be a great help."

"And yet, when you think _you_ ought to do this, you want _me_ to keep money from the house, so that I may have new dresses when I choose. O, Ruth, could you think me so selfish!"

"It would not be selfish, it would be right," urged her sister. But she could not bear to tell Agnes that if it were not for Guy they might both dress differently. He had come to her repeatedly for money to help him out of difficulty, and now he said there was no manner of use in attempting to do business up three flights of stairs; he must have a ground floor, and of course that would involve greater expense.

"If you could only manage to start me in this, Ruth," he had said, "there is no reason why I should not succeed. These one-horse affairs are always failures. I will pay you back again when money comes in you may be sure, as there is no doubt it will."

Then Ruth, who could not resist such pleading, told him to make the change and she would help him out with his rent, resolving then and there to do extra work in order to meet the demands upon her. She reasoned in this way, that if she chose to make sacrifices for Guy, Agnes need not share them, and if she told her she surely would insist upon it. And that was the reason she thought it best for Agnes to keep part of her own money.

"How little she suspects," she thought as Agnes sat down to rip her dresses, looking quite satisfied at having to do with her old clothes.

"What a sweet spirit our Agnes has."

Agnes worked and thought. She did not have the least idea how the money went, but she knew a little more would not be amiss, so she said: "If there was any other way in which I could help you, Ruth."

"Never mind that," was the reply, "you can direct Martha, and see to things when I am out, that will be a great help; for although Martha does remarkably well for a child of her age, there are many things to be attended to, requiring a more mature judgment."