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Updated: May 11, 2025
If I had never promised Gerald that I would not mention about his coming in so late. Oh, I wish I were back at Cressleigh!"
It was disappointing, more especially as she had just gained a handsome prize, which was indeed fairly hers by right of industry and patience. Yet after all it was no great hardship to go to the sea-side again with her aunt and cousins to spend the summer holidays. The reports from Cressleigh were not encouraging.
"The children were remarking last night," said her father, "that the spring has decorated all Cressleigh in honour of your return." "Here we are at last!" cried Ruth, as the train stopped at the well-known little station with its little garden-strip of bright flowers beside the platform.
It was rather dull, this first evening away from home; it seemed scarcely possible that she had really only left Cressleigh that morning, and she began to wonder if they had missed her very much, and what they were doing now, and when she should see them all again, and as she thought of the months that must elapse first she heaved a weary sigh.
Like David of old, she encouraged herself in the Lord, and once more took up her daily duties in the form of lessons and study. It was Easter again before Ruth was allowed to return to Cressleigh. How little she had thought when she left it that she would not see the old home and its inmates for nearly two years!
He chattered continually during the meal, and did a great deal to take off the sense of shyness that Ruth felt in the company of Julia and Ernest, and her aunt asked questions about the farm-life at Cressleigh, and talked of their plans for the next few weeks. "Oh! you will have a great deal to see," said Julia, "as this is your first visit to the sea-side.
Ruth drove off at last beside her father, feeling like one in a dream, so dimly did she see everything through the mist of tears which hung about her eyes. There was another farewell to be said at the railway junction, for Mr. Arnold could only wait a few minutes to see her into a comfortable carriage, and then returned home to Cressleigh.
A day's excursion of about ten miles into the country, in search of primroses and other wild flowers, greatly revived Ruth's longing for home. It seemed so strange to think that the Cressleigh woods were studded with primroses and anemones, and that she would not gather them nor see the woods until the flowers had all vanished. One more term's work, and then hurrah for home!
A week spent at Stonegate had taught Ruth more of her own frailties and weaknesses, and had shown her more of the various sorts of people of which the world is composed, than she would have learnt in a whole year spent in the quiet sheltered seclusion of her home at Cressleigh.
Julia, a pretty fair-haired fashionably-dressed girl, came forward and shook hands, saying, "How d'ye do, Ruth? I am glad mamma met you. Will you come upstairs?" She led the way to a pretty bedroom, much larger than the one in which Ruth had slept at Cressleigh.
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