Mrs. Bradshaw took me into her bedroom, and shut the doors, and said Mr. Bradshaw had told her, that he did not like Jemima being so much confined with the younger ones while they were at their lessons, and that he wanted some one above a nurse-maid to sit with them while their masters were there—­some one who would see about their learning their lessons, and who would walk out with them; a sort of nursery governess, I think she meant, though she did not say so; and Mr. Bradshaw (for, of course, I saw his thoughts and words constantly peeping out, though he had told her to speak to me) believed that our Ruth would be the very person.  Now, Thurstan, don’t look so surprised, as if she had never come into your head!  I am sure I saw what Mrs. Bradshaw was driving at, long before she came to the point; and I could scarcely keep from smiling, and saying, ’We’d jump at the proposal’—­long before I ought to have known anything about it.”

“Oh, I wonder what we ought to do!” said Mr. Benson.  “Or, rather, I believe I see what we ought to do, if I durst but do it.”

“Why, what ought we to do?” asked his sister, in surprise.

“I ought to go and tell Mr. Bradshaw the whole story——­”

“And get Ruth turned out of our house,” said Miss Benson indignantly.

“They can’t make us do that,” said her brother.  “I do not think they would try.”

“Yes, Mr. Bradshaw would try; and he would blazon out poor Ruth’s sin, and there would not be a chance for her left.  I know him well, Thurstan; and why should he be told now, more than a year ago?”

“A year ago he did not want to put her in a situation of trust about his children.”

“And you think she’ll abuse that trust, do you?  You’ve lived a twelvemonth in the house with Ruth, and the end of it is, you think she will do his children harm!  Besides, who encouraged Jemima to come to the house so much to see Ruth?  Did you not say it would do them both good to see something of each other?” Mr. Benson sat thinking.

“If you had not known Ruth as well as you do—­if, during her stay with us, you had marked anything wrong, or forward, or deceitful, or immodest, I would say at once, ’Don’t allow Mr. Bradshaw to take her into his house’; but still I would say, ’Don’t tell of her sin and sorrow to so severe a man—­so unpitiful a judge.’  But here I ask you, Thurstan, can you or I, or Sally (quick-eyed as she is), say, that in any one thing we have had true, just occasion to find fault with Ruth?  I don’t mean that she is perfect—­she acts without thinking, her temper is sometimes warm and hasty; but have we any right to go and injure her prospects for life, by telling Mr. Bradshaw all we know of her errors—­only sixteen when she did so wrong, and never to escape from it all her many years to come—­to have the despair which would arise from its being known, clutching her back into worse sin?  What harm do you think she can do?  What is the risk to which you think you are exposing Mr. Bradshaw’s children?” She paused, out of breath, her eyes glittering with tears of indignation, and impatient for an answer that she might knock it to pieces.