Mr. and Miss Benson had about thirty or forty pounds coming in annually from a sum which, in happier days, Mr. Bradshaw had invested in Canal shares for them.  Altogether their income did not fall much short of a hundred a year, and they lived in the Chapel-house free of rent.  So Ruth’s small earnings were but very little in actual hard commercial account, though in another sense they were much; and Miss Benson always received them with quiet simplicity.  By degrees, Mr. Benson absorbed some of Ruth’s time in a gracious and natural way.  He employed her mind in all the kind offices he was accustomed to render to the poor around him.  And as much of the peace and ornament of life as they gained now was gained on a firm basis of truth.  If Ruth began low down to find her place in the world, at any rate there was no flaw in the foundation.

Leonard was still their great anxiety.  At times the question seemed to be, could he live through all this trial of the elasticity of childhood?  And then they knew how precious a blessing—­how true a pillar of fire, he was to his mother; and how black the night, and how dreary the wilderness would be, when he was not.  The child and the mother were each messengers of God—­angels to each other.

They had long gaps between the pieces of intelligence respecting the Bradshaws.  Mr. Bradshaw had at length purchased the house at Abermouth, and they were much there.  The way in which the Bensons heard most frequently of the family of their former friends, was through Mr. Farquhar.  He called on Mr. Benson about a month after the latter had met Jemima in the street.  Mr. Farquhar was not in the habit of paying calls on any one; and, though he had always entertained and evinced the most kind and friendly feeling towards Mr. Benson, he had rarely been in the Chapel-house.  Mr. Benson received him courteously, but he rather expected that there would be some especial reason alleged, before the conclusion of the visit, for its occurrence; more particularly as Mr. Farquhar sat talking on the topics of the day in a somewhat absent manner, as if they were not the subjects most present to his mind.  The truth was, he could not help recurring to the last time when he was in that room, waiting to take Leonard a ride, and his heart beating rather more quickly than usual at the idea that Ruth might bring the boy in when he was equipped.  He was very full now of the remembrance of Ruth; and yet he was also most thankful, most self-gratulatory, that he had gone no further in his admiration of her—­that he had never expressed his regard in words—­that no one, as he believed, was cognisant of the incipient love which had grown partly out of his admiration, and partly out of his reason.  He was thankful to be spared any implication in the nine-days’ wonder which her story had made in Eccleston.  And yet his feeling for her had been of so strong a character, that he winced, as with extreme pain, at every application of censure to her name.  These