thing that he said or did.  It was his sincere conviction that the smallest matter affecting himself was of infinitely greater importance than the greatest that could possibly concern any one else.  There are plenty of people who believe this as sincerely as he believed it, but there are few who show the belief with his candor.  When he now stood up to place a chair for Ruth beside his own, he did the simple service as if the critical eyes of the world had been upon him.  And his manner was so consciously correct that no one observed that the chair which he gave her was not so comfortable as his own.  He was uncommonly good-looking, also, and tall and shapely, yet there was something about his full figure—­that vague, indescribable something—­which unmistakably marks the lack of virility in mind or body, no matter how large or handsome a man may be.  He stood for a moment after Ruth was seated, and then, seeing that Philip Alston was about to lift a candle-stand which was heaped with parcels, he went to aid him, and the two men together set the little table before her.  She looked at it with soft, excited cries of surprise and delight, instantly divining that the unopened parcels and sealed boxes contained more of the gifts which her foster-father was constantly lavishing upon her.  He smiled down at her beaming face and dancing eyes, and then taking out his pocket-knife he cut the cords and removed the covers of the boxes.  As the wrappings fell away, there was a shimmer of dazzling tissues, silver and gold.

“Oh! oh!” she cried.

“Just a few pretty trifles, my dear,” he said.  “You like them?”

“Like them!”

Repeating his words she sprang up, and running round the candle-stand, stood on the very tips of her toes so that she might throw her arms about his neck.  He bent his head to meet her upturned face, and if ever tenderness shone in a man’s pale, grave face, it shone then in his.  If ever love—­pure and unselfish—­beamed from a man’s eyes, it was beaming now from those looking down in the girl’s face.  His tender gaze followed her fondly as she went back to the candle-stand and began to examine each article again more than once and with lingering and growing delight.  She found new beauties every moment, and pointed them out to the three men and the boy who were now gathered around her.  She called the ladies also, over and over, but they did not come, although they cast many glances at the candle-stand.

Miss Penelope was engaged in making the coffee for supper; and while she did not consider the making of the coffee for supper quite so vital a matter as the making of the coffee for breakfast, she still could not think of leaving the hearth under any inducement so long as the coffee-pot sat on its trivet above the glowing coals.  The widow Broadnax stirred among her cushions once or twice, as if almost on the point of trying to get out of her chair.  She was fonder of finery than her half-sister was, and she would have liked very much to see these beautiful things nearer.  But she was still fonder of her own ease than of finery, and it was really a great deal of trouble to get out of her deep, broad low chair.  And then she never moved or took her eyes off her half-sister while that energetic lady was engaged in making the coffee.