Harry knew all about the opera, green room and all (at least he said so) and knew a good many of the operas and could make very entertaining stories of their plots, telling how the soprano came in here, and the basso here, humming the beginning of their airs—­tum-ti-tum-ti-ti —­suggesting the profound dissatisfaction of the basso recitative—­down —­among—­the—­dead—­men—­and touching off the whole with an airy grace quite captivating; though he couldn’t have sung a single air through to save himself, and he hadn’t an ear to know whether it was sung correctly.  All the same he doted on the opera, and kept a box there, into which he lounged occasionally to hear a favorite scene and meet his society friends.

If Ruth was ever in the city he should be happy to place his box at the disposal of Ruth and her friends.  Needless to say that she was delighted with the offer.

When she told Philip of it, that discreet young fellow only smiled, and said that he hoped she would be fortunate enough to be in New York some evening when Harry had not already given the use of his private box to some other friend.

The Squire pressed the visitors to let him send for their trunks and urged them to stay at his house, and Alice joined in the invitation, but Philip had reasons for declining.  They staid to supper, however, and in; the evening Philip had a long talk apart with Ruth, a delightful hour to him, in which she spoke freely of herself as of old, of her studies at Philadelphia and of her plans, and she entered into his adventures and prospects in the West with a genuine and almost sisterly interest; an interest, however, which did not exactly satisfy Philip—­it was too general and not personal enough to suit him.  And with all her freedom in speaking of her own hopes, Philip could not, detect any reference to himself in them; whereas he never undertook anything that he did not think of Ruth in connection with it, he never made a plan that had not reference to her, and he never thought of anything as complete if she could not share it.  Fortune, reputation these had no value to him except in Ruth’s eyes, and there were times when it seemed to him that if Ruth was not on this earth, he should plunge off into some remote wilderness and live in a purposeless seclusion.

“I hoped,” said Philip; “to get a little start in connection with this new railroad, and make a little money, so that I could came east and engage in something more suited to my tastes.  I shouldn’t like to live in the West.  Would you?

“It never occurred to me whether I would or not,” was the unembarrassed reply.  “One of our graduates went to Chicago, and has a nice practice there.  I don’t know where I shall go.  It would mortify mother dreadfully to have me driving about Philadelphia in a doctor’s gig.”

Philip laughed at the idea of it.  “And does it seem as necessary to you to do it as it did before you came to Fallkill?”