BY degrees Judge Burnham began to understand the woman whom he had chosen for his wife. Hitherto he had been in the habit of being governed by his own will, of bending forces to his strong purposes. Those occasional characters with whom he came in contact, who refused to be molded by him, he had good-naturedly let alone, crossing their path as little as possible, and teaching himself to believe that they were not worth managing, which was the sole reason why he did not manage them. But Ruth Erskine was a new experience—she would do what she believed to be the right thing; and she would not yield her convictions to be governed by his judgment. He could not manage her, and he had no wish to desert her. Clearly one of them must yield. The entire affair served to keep him in a perturbed state of mind.

Ruth grew more settled. Weeks went by, and her decisions were made, her plans formed, and she walked steadily toward their accomplishment. Not realizing it herself, she was yet engaged in making a compromise with her conscience. She believed herself, perhaps, to have done wrong in promising to become the wife of a man who ignored the principle which governed her life. She would not give back that promise, but she would make the life one of self-abnegation, instead of—what for one brief week it had seemed to her—a resting place, full of light. She would be his wife, but she would also be the mother of his daughters; she would live with them, for them; give up her plans, her tastes, her pursuits, for their sake. In short, she would assume the martyr’s garb in good earnest now, and wear it for a lifetime. The more repulsive this course seemed to her—and it grew very repulsive indeed—the more steadily she clung to it; and it was not obstinacy, you are to understand. It will do for such as Judge Burnham to call such resolves by that name; but you should know that Ruth Erskine was all the time governed by a solemn sense of duty. It was cross, hard, cold, unlightened by any gleams of peace; but for all that it started in a sense of duty.

By degrees the “long story,” much of it, came to light—rather was dragged to light—by a persistent method of cross-questioning which drove Judge Burnham to the very verge of desperation.

“Judge Burnham,” she would begin, “how have your daughters been cared for all these years?”

“Why,” he said, wriggling and trying to get away from his own sense of degradation, “they had good care; at least I supposed it was. During their childhood their mother’s sister lived there, and took the sole charge of them. She was a kind-hearted woman enough, and did her duty by them.”

“But she died, you told me, when they were still children.”

“Yes, that was when I was abroad. You see when I went I expected to return in a year at most, but I staid on, following one perplexing tangle after another in connection with my business affairs, until four or five years slipped away. Meantime their aunt died, and the old housekeeper, who had lived with their family since the last century sometime, took her place, and managed for them as well as she could. I didn’t realize how things were going. I imagined everything would come out right, you know.”

“I don’t see how they could,” Ruth said, coldly, and Judge Burnham answered nothing.

“Didn’t they attend school?”

“Why, yes, they went to the country school out there, you know, when there was one. It is too near the city to secure good advantages, and yet too far away for convenience. I meant, you see, to have them in town, when I came home, at the best schools, and boarding with me, but I found it utterly impracticable—utterly so. You have no conception of what five years of absence will do for people.”

“I can imagine something of what five years of neglect would do.”

Ruth said it icily—as she could speak. Then he would say, “Oh, Ruth!” in a tone which was entreating and almost pitiful. And he would start up and pace back and forth through the room for a moment, until brought back by one of her stabbing questions.

“How have they lived since your return?”

“Why, right there, just where they always have lived. It is the only home they have ever known.”

“And they are entirely alone?”

“Why, no. The housekeeper, of whom I told you, had a daughter, a trustworthy woman, and when her mother died this daughter moved to the house, with her family, and has taken care of them.”

“And so, Judge Burnham, your two daughters have grown to young ladyhood, isolated from companionship, and from education, and from refinements of every sort, even from their own father, and have been the companions of ignorant hirelings!”

“I tell you, Ruth, you must see them before you can understand this thing,” he would exclaim, in almost despair.

“I assuredly mean to,” would be her quiet answer, which answer drove him nearer to desperation than he was before. At last he came and stood before her.

“You force me to speak plainly,” he said. “I would have shielded you forever, and you will not let me. These girls are not like your class of girls. They have no interest in refined pursuits. They have no refinement of feeling or manner. They have no desire for education. They do not even care to keep their persons in ordinarily tasteful attire. They care nothing for the refinements of home. They belong to a lower order of being. It is simply impossible to conceive of them as my children; and it is utterly preposterous to think of your associating with them in any way.”

She was stilled at last—stunned, it would seem—for she sat in utter silence for minutes that seemed to him hours, while he stood before her and waited. When at last she spoke, her voice was not so cold as it had been, but it was controlled and intensely grave.

“And yet, Judge Burnham, they are your children, and you are bound to them by the most solemn and sacred vows which it is possible for a man to take on his lips. How can you ever hope to escape a just reward for ignoring them? Now, I must tell you what I feel and mean. I do not intend to be hard or harsh, and yet I intend to be true. I am not sure that I am acting or talking as other girls would, under like circumstances; but that is a question which has never troubled me. I am acting in what I believe to be the right way. You have asked me to be your wife, and I have promised in good faith. It was before I knew any of this story, which, in a sense, alters the ground on which we stood. I will tell you plainly what I believe I ought to do, and what, with my present views, I must do. I will give my life to helping you in this matter. I will go up to that home of yours and hide myself with those girls, and we will both do what we can to retrieve the mistakes of a lifetime. I will struggle and plan and endure for them. I am somewhat versed in the duties which this sort of living involves, as you know, and in the crosses which it brings. Perhaps it was for this reason they were sent to me. I have chafed under them, and been weak and worthless, God knows; and yet I feel that perhaps he is giving me another chance. I will try to do better work for him, in your home, than I have in my own. At any rate, I must try. If I fail, it shall be after the most solemn and earnest efforts that I can make. But, as I said, it must be tried. This is not all self-sacrifice, Judge Burnham. I mean that I could not do it, would not see that I had any right to do it, if I had not given my heart to you; and if for the love of you I could not trust myself to help you in your duty. But you must fully understand that it seems unquestionably to be your duty. You must not shirk it; I must never help you to shirk it; I should not dare. I will go with you to that home, and be with you a member of that family. But I can never make with you another home that does not include the family. I must never do it.”

Judge Burnham hoped to turn her away from this decision, which was, to him, simply an awful one! Do you imagine that he accomplished it? I believe you know her better. It is necessary for you to remember that he did not understand the underlying motive by which she was governed. When she said, “I must not do it,” he did not understand that she meant her vows to Christ would not let her. He believed, simply, that she set her judgment above his, in this matter, and determined that she would not yield it. The struggle was a severe one. At times he felt as though he would say to her, if she “must not” share with him the home he had so lovingly and tenderly planned for her, why, then, he must give her up. The only reason that he did not say this, was because he did not dare to try it. He had not the slightest intention of giving her up; and he was afraid she would take him at his word, as assuredly she would have done. She was dearer to him, in her obstinacy, than anything in life—and nothing must be risked. Therefore was he sore beset; and, as often as he renewed the struggle, he came off worsted. How could it be otherwise, when Ruth could constantly flee back to that unanswerable position—“Judge Burnham, it is wrong; I must not do it?” What if he didn’t understand her? He saw that she understood herself, and meant what she said.

So it came to pass that, as the days went by, and the hour for the marriage drew nearer and nearer, Judge Burnham felt the plans, so dear to his heart, slipping away from under his control. Ruth would be married. Well, that was a great point gained. But she would not go away for a wedding journey; she would not go to the Grand Hotel, where he desired to take rooms—no, not for a day, or hour. She would not have the trial of contrast between the few, first bright days of each other, and the dismal days following, when they had each other, with something constantly coming between. She would go directly to that country home, and nowhere else She would go to it just as it was. He was not to alter the surroundings or the outward life, in one single respect. She meant to see the home influence which had molded those girls exactly as it had breathed about them, without any outside hand to change it. She proposed to do the changing herself. One little bit of compromise her stern conscience admitted—her future husband might fit up one room for her use—her private retreat—according to his individual taste, and she would accept it from him as hers. But the outer life, that was to be lived as a family, he must not touch.

“But Ruth,” he said, “you do not understand. Things have utterly gone to decay. There was no one to care, or appreciate; there was no one to take care of anything, and I let everything go.”

“Very well,” she said; “then we will see what our united tastes can do, toward setting everything right, when we come to feel what is wanted.”

“Then couldn’t you go with me and see the place, a few weeks before we go there, and give directions, such as you would like to see carried out?—just a few, you know, such as you can take in at a glance, to make it a little more like home?”

She shook her head decidedly. No, indeed. She was not going there to spy out the desolation of the land. She was going to it as a home; and if, as a home, it was defective, together they—he, his daughters and herself—would see what was needed, and remodel it.

How dismally he shook his head over that! He knew his daughters, and she did not. He tried again:

“But, Ruth, it is five miles from the railroad. How will it be possible to ride ten miles by train, and five by carriage, night and morning, and attend to business?”

“Easily,” she said, quietly; “except in term-time. The busiest season that my father ever had we were in the country, and he came out nearly every evening. In term-time we must all come into town and board, I suppose.”

He winced over this, and was silent, and felt himself giving up his last hope of holding this thing in check, and began to realize that he loved this future wife of his very much indeed, else he could never submit to such a state of things. He believed it would last for but a little while—just long enough for her to see the hopelessness of things. But this “seeing,” with her, into all its hopelessness, was what he shrank from.

So the days went by; not much joy in them for any one concerned. Away from Ruth’s influence, Judge Burnham was annoyed, to such a degree, that he could hardly make a civil answer to the most ordinary question; and his office clerks grumbled among themselves that, if it made such a bear of a man to know that in three weeks he was to have a wife, they hoped their turn would never come. Away from his presence, Ruth was grave to a degree that threw an added shadow over the home-life. Susan felt herself to be in disgrace with her sister, and had been unable thus far, to rise above it, and be helpful, as she would have liked to be. Judge Erskine, hearing more details from his friend than from his daughter, sympathized with her strong sense of duty, honored her, rejoiced in her strength of purpose, and was sorry for her, realizing, more than before, what a continuous chain of trial her life had been of late. Therefore, his tone was tender and sympathizing, when he spoke to her, but sad, as one who felt too deeply, and was not able to impart strength.

As for Mrs. Erskine, she had so much to say about the strangeness of it all—wondering how Judge Burnham could have managed to keep things so secret, and how the girls looked, whether they favored him, or their ma, and whether they would be comfortable sort of persons to get along with—that Ruth was driven to the very verge of distraction, and felt, at times, that, to get out of that house, into any other on earth, would be a relief.

There was much ado, also, about that wedding. Mrs. Erskine wanted marvelous things—an illumination, and a feast, and a crowd, and all the resources of the rain-bow, as to bridal toilet. But here, as in other matters, Ruth held steadily to her own way, and brought it to pass—a strictly private wedding, in the front parlor of her father’s house; not a person, outside of the Erskine family circle, to witness the ceremony, save Marion Dennis; she, by virtue of being Dr. Dennis’ wife, gained admission. But Marion Dennis’ tears fell fast behind the raised handkerchief, which shielded her face during the solemn prayer. She knew, in detail, some of Ruth’s plans. She knew, better than Ruth did—so she thought—that plans are sometimes hard to carry out. How many she had indulged and, at this moment, there sat at home, her haughty daughter, Grace, entirely unforgiving, because of her “meddling”—so she styled the earnest attempts to shield her from danger. To Marion, Ruth’s future had never looked less hopeful than it did on this marriage morning.

It may be that her own disappointments caused some of the flowing tears; but her heart ached for Ruth. What should she do without a Christian husband—a husband entirely in sympathy with every effort, and entirely tender with every failure of hers! What was Ruth to do, with Judge Burnham for a husband, instead of Dr. Dennis! How were the trials of life to be borne with any man living except this one!

Thus reasoned silly Marion—unconsciously, indeed; but that was as it seemed to her.

Well for Ruth, that even at this moment, she could look into the face of the man whom she had chosen, and feel: “It is after all, for him. There is no other person for whom I could begin this life.”

Said a friend, the other day, in sympathetic tones, as she spoke of a young bride going far from her home and her mother: “I feel so sorry for her. It is such a trying experience, all alone, away from all her early friends.”

“But,” I said, “after all, she doesn’t go as far as you told me you did, when you were married.”

The answer was quick:

“Oh, no; but then I had my husband, you know; and she—”

And then she stopped to laugh.

So it was a blessed thing that Ruth Burnham, going out from the home which had sheltered her, felt that she went with her husband.