I SUPPOSE there was never a bride going out from her home, with her husband, who was more silent than was our Ruth. It was the silence of constraint, too. It was such a little journey! ten miles or so, by train, then five by carriage, and then—what were they coming to? If only it had been her husband’s happy home, where treasures were waiting to greet him, and be clasped to his heart, Ruth felt that it would have been so much easier.

Yet I think, very likely, she did not understand her own heart. Probably the easiest excuse that we can make for ourselves, or for our shrinking from duties, is, “If it were only something else, I could do it.” I think it quite likely that had Ruth been going to just such a home as she imagined would make her cross lighter, she would have been jealous of those clasping hands and tender kisses. The human heart is a strange instrument, played upon in all sorts of discords, even when we think there is going to be music. As it was, the certainty of her husband’s disapproval, the sense of strangeness, and the sense of shrinking from the new trials, and the questioning as to whether, after all, she had done right, all served to depress Ruth’s heart and hush her voice, to such a degree that she felt speech was impossible. I want to linger a minute over one sentence—the questioning as to whether, after all, she had done right. There is no more miserable state of mind than this. It is such dreadful ground for the Christian to occupy! Yet, practically, half the Christians in the world are there. Theoretically, we believe ourselves to be led, even in the common affairs of life, by the All-wise Spirit of God; theoretically, we believe that He can make no mistake; theoretically, we believe that it is just as easy to get an answer from that Spirit—“a word behind thee,” as the Bible phrases it, directing us which way to go—as it is to hear our human friend answer to our call. But, practically, what do we believe? What is the reason that so much of our life is given up to mourning over possible mistakes? Is it because we choose to decide some questions for ourselves without bringing them to the test of prayer? or because, having asked for direction, we failed to watch for the answer, or expect it, and so lost the “still small voice?” Or is it, sometimes, because having heard the voice, we regret its direction and turn from it, and choose our own?

Ruth Burnham was conscious of none of these states. She had prayed over this matter; indeed, it seemed to her that she had done little else than pray, of late; and, in some points, she was strong, feeling that her feet had been set upon a rock. But in others there was, at this too late moment, a sense of faltering. “Might she not,” asked her conscience of her, “have yielded somewhat? Would it have worked any ill for them both to have gone away from everybody for a few weeks, as Judge Burnham so desired to do, and have learned to know and help each other, and have learned to talk freely together about this new home, and have grown stronger together, before facing this manifest duty?”

I do not tell you she might have done all this. Perhaps her first position, that it would have been unwise and unhelpful, was the right one. I think we do, sometimes, put added touches of our own to the cross that the Father lays upon us, making it shade in gloom, when he would have tinted it with the sunlight. But I do not say that Ruth had done this. I don’t know which was wise. What I am sure of is, that she, having left it to Christ; having asked for his direction, and having received it (for unless she thought she had been shown the step to take, assured she ought not to have stepped,) she had no right to unrest herself and strap on to her heart the burden of that wearying question, “Did I, after all, do right?”

Judge Burnham could match her in quietness. He had her beside him at last. She was his wife; she bore his name; henceforth their interests were one. Thus much of what he had months ago set himself steadily to accomplish had been accomplished. But not a touch of the details was according to his plans. The situation in which he found himself was so new and so bewildering, that while he meant, for her sake, to make the best of it until such time as she should see that she was wrong and he right, yet, truth to tell, he hardly knew how to set about making the best of it.

He did what he could. No topic for conversation that suggested itself to his mind seemed entirely safe. And, beside, what use to try to converse for so short a journey? So he contented himself with opening her car-window, and dropping her blind, and arranging her travelling-shawl comfortably for a shoulder-support, and in other nameless, thoughtful ways making this bit of a journey bright with care-taking tenderness. It served to show Ruth how royally he would have cared for her in the longer journey which he wanted, and which she wouldn’t have. Whereupon she immediately said to her heart “Perhaps it would have been better if I had yielded.” And that made her miserable. There was no time to yield now. The station was called out, and there was bustle and haste and no little nervousness in getting off in time, for the train seemed, before it fairly halted, to have been sorry for that attempt at accommodation, and began to show signs of going on again that were nerve-distracting. It annoyed Judge Burnham to the degree that he said, savagely, to the conductor, “It was hardly worth while to stop, if you can’t do it more comfortably.” He would have liked so much to have been leisurely and comfortable; to have done everything in a composed, travelled manner; he understood so thoroughly all the details of travelled life. Why could he not show Ruth some of the comforts of it? That little station! It was in itself a curiosity to Ruth. She had not supposed, that ten miles away from a city, anything could be so diminutive. A long, low, unpainted building, with benches for seats, and loungers spitting tobacco-juice for furniture. There was evidently something unusual to stare at. This was the presence of a quiet, tasteful carriage, with handsome horses, and a driver who indicated, by the very flourish of his whip, that this was a new locality to him. He and his horses and his carriage belonged, unmistakably, to city-life, and had rarely reached so far out.

“Is this your carriage?” Ruth asked, surveying it with a touch of satisfaction as Judge Burnham made her comfortable among the cushions.

“No, it is from town. There are no carriages belonging to this enlightened region.”

“How do your family reach the station, then?”

“They never reach it,” he answered, composedly. He had resolved upon not trying to smooth over anything.

“But how did you get to and from the cars when you were stopping here?”

“On the rare occasions when I was so unfortunate as to stop here I sometimes caught the wagon which brings the mail and takes unfortunate passengers; or, if I were too early for that, there were certain milk-carts and vegetable-carts which gave me the privilege of a ride, with a little persuasion in the shape of money.”

Nothing could be more studiedly polite than Judge Burnham’s tone; but there was a covert sarcasm in every word he said. He seemed to Ruth to be thinking, “I hope you realize the uncomfortable position into which your obstinacy has forced me.”

Evidently not a touch of help was to be had from him. What were they to talk about during that five miles of travel over a rough road? Ruth studied her brains to try to develop a subject that would not make them even more uncomfortable than they now felt. She was unfortunate in selection, but it seemed impossible to get away from the thoughts which were just now so prominently before them. She suddenly remembered a fact which surprised her, and to which she gave instant expression.

“Judge Burnham, what are your daughter’s names?”

The gentleman thus addressed wrinkled his forehead into a dozen frowns, and shook himself, as though he would like to shake away all remembrance of the subject, before he said:

“Their very names are a source of mortification to me. The elder is Seraphina and the other Araminta. What do you think of them?”

Ruth was silent and dismayed. This apparently trivial circumstance served to show her what a strange state of things existed in the home whither she was going. She didn’t know how to answer her husband’s question. She was sorry that she had asked any. There seemed no way out but to ask another, which, in truth, pressed upon her.

“How do you soften such names? What do you call them when you address them?”

“I call them nothing. I know of no way of smoothing such hopeless cognomens, and I take refuge in silence, or bewildering pronouns.”

Ruth pondered over this answer long enough to have her courage rise and to grow almost indignant. Then she spoke again:

“But, Judge Burnham, I do not see how you could have allowed so strange a selection for girls in this age of the world. Why didn’t you save them from such a life-long infliction? Or, was there some reason for the use of these names that dignifies them—that makes them sacred?”

“There is this sole reason for the names, and for many things which you will find yourself unable to understand. Their mother was a hopeless victim to fourth-rate sensation novels, and named her daughters from that standpoint. I was in reality powerless to interfere. You may have discovered before this that I am not always able to follow out the dictates of my own judgment, and others, as well as myself, have to suffer in consequence.”

What could Ruth answer to this? She felt its covert meaning; and so sure was she beginning to feel that she had followed her own ideas, instead of the leadings of any higher voice, that she had not the heart to be offended with the plainness of the insinuation. But she realized that it was a strange conversation for a newly-made husband and wife. She took refuge again in silence. Judge Burnham tried to talk. He asked if the seat she occupied was entirely comfortable, and if she enjoyed riding, and if she had tried the saddle, or thought she would enjoy such exercise, and presently he said:

“These are abominable roads. I am sorry to have you so roughly treated in the very beginning of our journey together. I did not want roughness to come to you, Ruth. I thought that you had endured enough.”

She was sorry that he said this. Her tears were never nearer the surface than at this moment, and she did not want to shed them. She began to talk rapidly to him about the beauty of the far-away hills which stretched bluely before them, and he tried to help her effort and appreciate them. Still it was too apparent just then neither cared much for hills; and it was almost a relief when the carriage at last drew up under a row of elms. These, at least, were beautiful. So was the long, irregular, grassy yard that stretched away up the hill, and was shaded by noble old trees. It required but a moment to dismiss the carriage, and then her husband gave her his arm, and together they toiled up the straggling walk toward the long, low building, which was in dire need of paint.

“This yard is lovely,” Ruth said, and she wondered if her voice trembled very much.

“I used to like the yard, a hundred years or so ago,” he answered sadly. “It really seems to me almost as long ago as that since I had any pleasant recollections of anything connected with it.”

“Was it your mother’s home?”

“Yes,” he said, and his face grew tender. “And she was a good mother, Ruth; I loved the old house once for her sake.”

“I think I can make you love it again for mine.” Ruth said the words gently, with a tender intonation that was very pleasant to hear, and that not many people heard from her. Judge Burnham was aware of it, and his grave face brightened a little. He reached after her hand, and held it within his own, and the pressure he gave it said what he could not speak. So they went up the steps of that low porch with lighter hearts, after all, than had seemed possible.

The door at the end of that porch opened directly into the front room, or “keeping room,” as, in the parlance of that region of country, it was called, though Ruth did not know it. The opening of that door was a revelation to her. She had never been in a real country room before. There were green paper shades to the windows, worn with years, and faded; and little twinkling rays of the summer sunshine pushed in through innumerable tiny holes, which holes, curiously enough, Ruth saw and remembered, and associated forever after with that hour and moment. There was a rag carpet on the floor, of dingy colors and uneven weaving. Ruth did not even know the name of that style of carpet, but she knew it was peculiar. There were cane-seated chairs, standing in solemn rows at proper intervals. There was a square table or “stand,” if she had but known the proper name for it, covered with a red cotton cloth having a gay border and fringed edges. There was a wooden chair or two, shrinking back from contact with the “smarter” cane-seated ones; and there was a large, old-fashioned, high-backed wooden rocker, covered back and arms and sides, with a gay patch-work cover, aglow with red and green and yellow, and it seemed, to poor Ruth, a hundred other dazzling colors, and the whole effect reminded her forcibly of Mrs. Judge Erskine!

Now, you have a list of every article of furniture which this large room contained. No, I forget the mantle-piece, though Ruth did not. It was long and deep and high, and was adorned with a curious picture or two, which would bear studying before you could be sure what they were, and with two large, bright, brass candlesticks, and a tray and snuffers. Also, in the center, a fair-sized kerosene lamp, which looked depraved enough to smoke like a furnace, without even waiting to be lighted! Also, there were some oriental paintings in wooden frames on the wall. Are you so fortunate as not to understand what oriental paintings are? Then you will be unable to comprehend a description of Ruth’s face as her eye rested on them! Judge Burnham was looking at her as her eye roved swiftly and silently over this scene, not excepting the curious paper, with which the walls were hung in a pattern long gone by. He stood a little at one side, affecting to raise an unmanageable window sash. They were all unmanageable; but in reality he was watching her, and I must confess to you that this scene, contrasted in his mind with the elegant home which his wife had left, was fast taking a ludicrous side to him. The embarrassments were great, and he knew that they would thicken upon him, and yet the desire to laugh overcame all other emotions. His eyes danced, and he bit his lips to restrain their mirth. But at last, when Ruth turned and looked at him, the expression in her face overcame him, and he burst forth into laughter.

It was a blessed thing for Ruth that she was able to join him.

“Sit down,” he said, wheeling the gay rocker toward her. “I am sure you never occupied so elegant a seat before. There is a great gray cat belonging to the establishment who usually sits in state here, but she has evidently vacated in your favor to-day.”

Ruth sank into the chair, unable to speak; the strangeness of it all, and the conflicting emotions stirring in her heart fairly took away the power of speech. Judge Burnham came and stood beside her.

“We have entered into this thing, Ruth,” he said, and his voice was not so hard as it had been, “and there are embarrassments enough certainly connected with it, and yet it is a home, and it is our home—yours and mine—and we are together forever. This, of itself, is joy enough to atone for almost anything.”

She was about to answer him, and there was a smile on her face, in the midst of tears in her eyes; but they were interrupted. The door opened suddenly, and an apparition in the shape of a child, perhaps five years old, appeared to them—a tow-headed child with staring blue eyes and wide-open mouth—a child in a very pink dress, not over-clean and rather short,—a child with bare feet, and with her arms full of a great gray cat. She stared amazingly at them for a moment, then turned and vanished.

“That is not mine, at least,” Judge Burnham said, and the tone in which he said it was irresistible.

His eyes met Ruth’s at that moment, and all traces of tears had disappeared, also all signs of sentiment. There was but one thing to do, and they did it; and the old house rang with peal after peal of uncontrollable laughter.