and it was not the family who caused them to be brought there.  For while the judge was a man of wealth for his time and place, and able to give his family greater comfort than his poorer neighbors could afford, he was far from having the means, much less the taste and culture, to gather such costly, beautiful, and rare things as were gathered together in Cedar House.  It was through Philip Alston that everything of this kind had come.  It was he who had chosen everything and paid for it, and ordered it fetched over the mountains from Virginia or up the river from France or Spain—­all as gifts from him to Ruth.  It was natural enough that he should give her whatever he wished her to have, and there was no reason why she should not accept any and everything that he gave.  She was held by him and by every one as his adopted daughter.  He had no children of his own, no relations of any degree so far as any one knew, and he was known to be generous and believed to be very rich.  Indeed no one thought much about his gifts to Ruth; they had long since become a matter of course, a part of the everyday life of Cedar House.  They had begun with Ruth’s coming more than seventeen years before.  As a baby she had been rocked in a cradle such as never before had been seen in the wilderness,—­a very gem of wonderful carving and inlaid work from Spain.  As a little child she had been dressed—­as no little one of the wild wood ever had been before—­in the finest fabrics and the daintiest needlework from the looms and convents of France.  Very strange things may become familiar through use.  The simple people of Cedar House and their rude neighbors were well used to all this.  They had seen the beautiful blue-eyed baby grow to be a more beautiful child, and the child to a most beautiful maiden, and always surrounded by the greatest refinement and luxury that love and means could bring into the wilderness.  Naturally enough they now found nothing to wonder at, in the daily presence of this radiant young figure among them.

It was only for an instant that the girl and boy stood thus unseen on the threshold of Cedar House, looking into the great room.  Philip Alston saw them almost at once.  He had been watching and waiting for Ruth, as he always was when she was out of his sight even for a moment.  He sprang up, quickly and alertly, like a strong young man, and went to meet her with his gallant air.  She held up her cheek smilingly; he bent and kissed it, and taking her hand with his grand bow, led her across the room.  The judge and his nephew also arose, as they always did when she came in or went out.  The judge did this unconsciously, without thinking, and scarcely knowing that he did do it; for he was a plain man, rather awkward and very absent-minded, and deeply absorbed in the study of his profession.  William Pressley did it with deliberate intention and self-consciousness, as he did everything that he deemed fitting.  It was his nature to give grave thought to the least