Ruth Arnold Part 3

"No, mamma, we don't care about it; any other place will do," replied Julia sulkily.

"We will walk along the beach to Brill Head then," said Mrs. Woburn, "and I dare say Ernest would like to accompany us; he will find plenty of specimens there."

"Shall I stay at home, Aunt Annie?" asked Ruth timidly.

"Certainly not, unless you wish it; Julia has been longing to have you for a companion, and this will be such a delightful walk."

But the pleasure of the walk was gone for Ruth. Julia was quiet, and scarcely spoke to any one, and her mother could not understand what was the matter, and although she tried her best to bring back the look of delight to her niece's face, she was not successful. It was not until they reached Brill Head, and Ernest began his search for specimens, that Ruth recovered her wonted liveliness, and the suns.h.i.+ne returned to her face and the gladness to her heart, and she felt so full of life and energy that she challenged Rupert to a race.

"Just look at her, mamma!" exclaimed Julia, who was sitting beside her mother on a rustic seat. "Did you ever see any one so wild and vulgar?

And that frightful dress, as old-fas.h.i.+oned as possible! To think of our going on the Esplanade with her!"

"Is that the reason you did not wish to go there?"

"Of course it was. Every one would have stared at her antiquated dress.

Indeed, she is altogether old-fas.h.i.+oned; she actually asked me last night if I had any dolls, and if I went to Sunday-school. I didn't think that having a poor relation to live with us would be quite so annoying and humiliating."

Mrs. Woburn was very seldom angry with her spoilt child, but now she was thoroughly roused, and said in low distinct tones, "Remember, Julia, that you speak of my brother's daughter. While Ruth is here she will be treated as your sister. You little know what you owe to your uncle, and if I ever hear you speak in that contemptuous way of any of his family I will send you to your room at once."

Such a threat was quite strange to Julia, who at fourteen began to consider herself almost grown-up, and quite above reproof or punishment; but it was sufficiently determined to prevent her making any more remarks of the sort in her mother's hearing, though it did not increase her affection for her cousin.

During the walk home Ruth was merry as ever, romping with Rupert, chatting with that usually shy lad, Ernest, and planning an afternoon on the sh.o.r.e to collect sea-weeds. But Julia walked slowly beside her mother, so evidently determined to be silent that the rest of the party tacitly agreed to leave her to herself.

Mr. Woburn and his eldest son, Gerald, arrived at Stonegate that afternoon, and Ruth saw them for the first time. She soon felt at home with her uncle, a plain-featured, middle-aged man of business, but with his son she felt wonderfully shy. It seemed hardly possible that the handsome young man with the dark moustache and manly bearing could be her cousin. She had expected to see a boy two or three years older than Will, but still a boy, not a polite and self-possessed young man, who by his way of speaking to her made her feel a very little girl indeed.

"How have you been improving the s.h.i.+ning hours, my lad?" was his greeting to Ernest.

"He has been down on the sh.o.r.e collecting sh.e.l.ls for Ruth," said Julia mischievously.

"Ernest becoming a lady's man! Dear me! the country cousin is working wonders," he cried in feigned surprise.

Ruth felt the hot blood rus.h.i.+ng to her cheeks, though she tried to look as if she had not heard the remark; but it spoilt her pleasure in seeking for sh.e.l.ls, and she decided mentally that she should never like Cousin Gerald. The arrival of her brother seemed to have restored Julia's good-humour, and when in the evening he proposed a stroll on the pier she gladly a.s.sented, and the whole party set out to hear the band which played there two or three evenings in the week.

Ruth thought that she had never known anything so charming as that evening. It was so pleasant to sit in a sheltered corner listening to the finest music she had ever heard, played by a military band and accompanied by the gentle splash of the waves against the pier; to feel the cool fresh sea-breeze blowing around her, and to see the gay dresses of the ladies as they walked up and down talking to their friends, until by-and-by the quiet stars came out and the silver moon shone upon the scene.

Julia was not contented to sit still and look on; she begged Gerald to let her promenade with him, and for a few minutes he gratified her whim; but Ruth, although she had changed the dress which had proved so obnoxious that morning, did not consider herself to be attired richly enough to mingle with the gay throng that pa.s.sed and re-pa.s.sed her in her quiet corner.

"What do you think of Gerald?" asked Julia, when the two girls had retired to their bedroom that evening. "Is he not very handsome?"

"Yes," said Ruth, glad that her cousin had asked a question to which she could give her a.s.sent so easily. "But I didn't know that he was so old; I expected he would be a boy."

"He is only nineteen," said Julia; "but I am sure he looks older."

"Only nineteen! Why, Will is seventeen, and he is quite a boy compared with Cousin Gerald."

"That is very likely, for he has been brought up in the country, and that makes a great difference. Now I am sure that Gerald knows quite as much as most men do, and I think it is too bad for father to treat him like a boy."

"Does he?" asked Ruth innocently.

"Yes; he won't even allow him to have a latch-key, and then he complains if Gerald is rather late home in the evening, and he has to sit up for him. And even mamma annoys him dreadfully sometimes by calling him 'her dear boy.'"

"I thought mothers did that even when their sons were quite grown up,"

said Ruth.

"I don't think they should," was Julia's reply. "But it is quite too bad of papa to expect poor Gerald to slave away in that office all day. He is quite a tyrant, and grudges the poor fellow any pleasure."

"Julia! Julia! I am sure it is very wrong of you to talk in that way of your parents," cried Ruth reproachfully. "Don't you know the Bible says, 'Honour thy father and mother'?"

"What an old-fas.h.i.+oned, tiresome creature you are!" muttered Julia in a sleepy voice.

CHAPTER VII.

A POOR RELATION.

"When are we to have the picnic, mamma?" asked Julia at breakfast the next morning.

"Any day will suit me; but as your father and Gerald will only be here for a short time, I think we must arrange to have it as early as possible the week after next."

"Let us have it on Monday. Yes, Monday," cried Rupert and Julia together.

"I am going out boating on Monday," said Gerald lazily.

"Tuesday or Wednesday," suggested Mrs. Woburn.

"I am engaged for Tuesday also, but Wednesday is clear, I believe,"

replied the young man in a careless manner, as if it did not signify much to him whether he formed one of the party or not.

"How horrid of you to put it off so long," exclaimed his sister angrily.

"I daresay Wednesday will be wet."

"_Nous verrons_," he replied, as he sauntered from the room with his hands in his pockets. He looked in again at the door to say, "I shall not be back until the evening, mother;" and in another moment the banging of the front-door told them that he had left the house.

"It is too bad of Gerald to go off like that the very first day he is here," said Julia. "I suppose he has taken his bicycle and gone out with his friends, the Goodes. Horrid people! Yes, there he is," she cried as Gerald and two other young men on bicycles pa.s.sed the house bowing and smiling towards the window where the two girls were standing.

"Gerald out with the Goodes? I wish he would choose some other companions," said Mr. Woburn, who had scarcely noticed their previous conversation.

"You see how papa finds fault with him," whispered Julia to her cousin.

"Ruth, I want you to come to my room for a few minutes," said Mrs.

Woburn; and her niece followed her upstairs.

"I should like you to try on these things and see how they fit you," she said, as she pointed to some pretty dresses spread out on the bed. There was a pale pink, trimmed with dainty white lace; a figured sateen covered with tiny rosebuds, and finished off here and there with knots and bows of rose-coloured ribbon; a simple holland dress trimmed with white braid, and a shady straw hat with bows of lace and a tiny bunch of rosebuds. Ruth gazed at the garments with admiration and astonishment, then she glanced at her own shabby print frock, blushed rosy red, and the tears began to gather in her eyes.

"What is the matter, Ruth? Do you not like them?" asked her aunt kindly.