invested. He has great confidence in his success, and I hope for his
sake he won’t be disappointed.”
Philip could not but feel that he was treated very much like one of the
Bolton-family–by all except Ruth. His mother, when he went home after
his recovery from his accident, had affected to be very jealous of Mrs.
Bolton, about whom and Ruth she asked a thousand questions–
an affectation of jealousy which no doubt concealed a real heartache,
which comes to every mother when her son goes out into the world and
forms new ties. And to Mrs. Sterling; a widow, living on a small income
in a remote Massachusetts village, Philadelphia was a city of many
splendors. All its inhabitants seemed highly favored, dwelling in ease
and surrounded by superior advantages. Some of her neighbors had
relations living in Philadelphia, and it seemed to them somehow a
guarantee of respectability to have relations in Philadelphia.
Mrs. Sterling was not sorry to have Philip make his way among such well-
to-do people, and she was sure that no good fortune could be too good for
his deserts.
“So, sir,” said Ruth, when Philip came from New York, “you have been
assisting in a pretty tragedy. I saw your name in the papers. Is this
woman a specimen of your western friends?”
“My only assistance,” replied Philip, a little annoyed, was in trying to
keep Harry out of a bad scrape, and I failed after all. He walked into
her trap, and he has been punished for it. I’m going to take him up to
Ilium to see if he won’t work steadily at one thing, and quit his
nonsense.”
“Is she as beautiful as the newspapers say she is?”
“I don’t know, she has a kind of beauty–she is not like–‘
“Not like Alice?”
“Well, she is brilliant; she was called the handsomest woman in
Washington–dashing, you know, and sarcastic and witty. Ruth, do you
believe a woman ever becomes a devil?”
“Men do, and I don’t know why women shouldn’t. But I never saw one.”
“Well, Laura Hawkins comes very near it. But it is dreadful to think of
her fate.”
“Why, do you suppose they will hang a woman? Do you suppose they will be
so barbarous as that?”
“I wasn’t thinking of that–it’s doubtful if a New York jury would find a
woman guilty of any such crime. But to think of her life if she is
acquitted.”
“It is dreadful,” said Ruth, thoughtfully, “but the worst of it is that
you men do not want women educated to do anything, to be able to earn an
honest living by their own exertions. They are educated as if they were
always to be petted and supported, and there was never to be any such
thing as misfortune. I suppose, now, that you would all choose to have
me stay idly at home, and give up my profession.”
“Oh, no,” said Philip, earnestly, “I respect your resolution. But,
Ruth, do you think you would be happier or do more good in following your
profession than in having a home of your own?”
“What is to hinder having a home of my, own?”
“Nothing, perhaps, only you never would be in it–you would be away day
and night, if you had any practice; and what sort of a home would that
make for your husband?”
“What sort of a home is it for the wife whose husband is always away
riding about in his doctor’s gig?”
“Ah, you know that is not fair. The woman makes the home.”
Philip and Ruth often had this sort of discussion, to which Philip was
always trying to give a personal turn. He was now about to go to Ilium
for the season, and he did not like to go without some assurance from
Ruth that she might perhaps love him some day; when he was worthy of it,
and when he could offer her something better than a partnership in his
poverty.
“I should work with a great deal better heart, Ruth,” he said the morning
he was taking leave, “if I knew you cared for me a little.”
Ruth was looking down; the color came faintly to her cheeks, and she