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Ralph exhausted all his powers of persuasion to
induce Ruth to remain and marry him at once.
Tearfully but resolutely she refused; yet she wept
to think, that now, when they had confessed their
loves, and the currents of their lives, like mingling
streams, might flow tranquilly and happily, they
must part.

“But, Ralph,” she would say, “part we must;
and you will love me more, I know you will, to
think I have fulfilled my duty. We will hear from
each other often, Ralph; and you will come west
soon, will you not, Ralph?”

“I will, dearest Ruth, I will. You must not be
surprised to see me there at any time. What an interest
I shall take in the west now; where you settle
will be a charmed place to me; its very name will be
a spell to call up the holiest emotions of my heart.
Dearest Ruth, I cannot but dwell upon it,—is it not
strange that, loving you as I have loved for years,
the confession should not have passed my lips
sooner? I thought at one time that you loved my
cousin Henry, and you thought that I loved Helen
Murray.”

Ruth blushed, but she spoke not. And, after such
a remark, they would set for hours together without

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scarcely exchanging a word. The idea of their
love and their parting occupying their hearts with
thought too deep for words.

Mr. Lorman sometimes thought he observed an
attachment existing between them, but mindful of,
and impressed by, what Mr. Solomon Beckford had
told him, and not at all aware of the strength of
their affections for each other, he deemed it best to
act as if he did not at all notice it. He thought that
absence would wean them both, and that in the new
scene to which his family was bound, Ruth would
not only soon forget Ralph, but soon make a much
more eligible match, for he had built many airy
castles in the western skies.

Too soon the day of their parting, which would
not be procrastinated, arrived. They were to start
early in the morning in a stage which Mr. Lorman
had chartered for the purpose. Helen Murray and
Ralph, with some other of their friends, were there
by-times, to bid them good-bye. There is one
blessed thing in these partings, viz., that the hurry
and bustle, the anxiety, to know that all is right,
that nothing is left, that every arrangement is properly
made, distract the mind somewhat from the
idea of the separation, and thus rob it of some of
its agony.

Ruth threw her arms around Helen's neck as the
stage drove up to the door, and, unable to control
herself any longer, she wept wildly as she said:

“Farewell, Helen, farewell! God bless you. I

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feel the world is all before me, but that I have left
my only friend behind. Ralph!” she said, addressing
her lover, while she attempted in vain to dry her
tears, “Ralph!” She could say no more.

In silence he pressed her hand to his heart, and
she entered the stage.

“Good-bye, Miss Helen, good-bye, Ralph,” said
little Billy, calling out of the stage window. “Don't
forget, Ralph, to come and see sister Ruth and me
as you promised. I shall be a bigger boy then than
I am now.”

Ralph waved his hand, and away the coach
drove. As it turned rapidly round a corner not far
off, he caught a glance of Ruth, in a flood of tears,
and of Billy offering her his pocket handkerchief.

Helen Murray's carriage was in waiting. “Come,”
said she, as she hastily replaced her handkerchief in
her reticule, and impulsively drew the strings, “come,
Ralph—I beg pardon, Mr. Beckford—ride home
with me. I suppose I shall have some triflers calling
to whom I shall not be at home—I wish company
that has some heart.”

Ralph handed Helen to her carriage, and without
answering, took a seat by her side. How desolate
Lorman's late residence looked to him untenanted.
How saddening the associations it called up. As
they passed the corner round which the stage had
just turned, Ralph beheld his father beckoning to
the driver, and heard him calling on him to stop.

The driver would have continued on regardless,

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but Mr. Lorman ordered him to stop, when the old
miser hurried up to the coach-window, and as soon
as he could catch his breath he ejaculated,

“Bless, my soul! off a'ready—I thought I should
be time enough—ahem! ahem! Friend Lorman, I
shall have some heavy payments to make in the
coming year—don't fail to be punctual in the remittance
of the interest.”

Mr. Lorman assured him that he would not, and
ordered the driver to proceed. As he did so, Ralph
caught another and a last look from Ruth Lorman.