Ruth Arnold | Page 9

shy. It seemed hardly possible that the handsome young man with the dark moustache and manly bearing could be her cousin. She had expected to see a boy two or three years older than Will, but still a boy, not a polite and self-possessed young man, who by his way of speaking to her made her feel a very little girl indeed.
"How have you been improving the shining hours, my lad?" was his greeting to Ernest.
"He has been down on the shore collecting shells for Ruth," said Julia mischievously.
"Ernest becoming a lady's man! Dear me! the country cousin is working wonders," he cried in feigned surprise.
Ruth felt the hot blood rushing to her cheeks, though she tried to look as if she had not heard the remark; but it spoilt her pleasure in seeking for shells, and she decided mentally that she should never like Cousin Gerald. The arrival of her brother seemed to have restored Julia's good-humour, and when in the evening he proposed a stroll on the pier she gladly assented, and the whole party set out to hear the band which played there two or three evenings in the week.
Ruth thought that she had never known anything so charming as that evening. It was so pleasant to sit in a sheltered corner listening to the finest music she had ever heard, played by a military band and accompanied by the gentle splash of the waves against the pier; to feel the cool fresh sea-breeze blowing around her, and to see the gay dresses of the ladies as they walked up and down talking to their friends, until by-and-by the quiet stars came out and the silver moon shone upon the scene.
Julia was not contented to sit still and look on; she begged Gerald to let her promenade with him, and for a few minutes he gratified her whim; but Ruth, although she had changed the dress which had proved so obnoxious that morning, did not consider herself to be attired richly enough to mingle with the gay throng that passed and re-passed her in her quiet corner.
"What do you think of Gerald?" asked Julia, when the two girls had retired to their bedroom that evening. "Is he not very handsome?"
"Yes," said Ruth, glad that her cousin had asked a question to which she could give her assent so easily. "But I didn't know that he was so old; I expected he would be a boy."
"He is only nineteen," said Julia; "but I am sure he looks older."
"Only nineteen! Why, Will is seventeen, and he is quite a boy compared with Cousin Gerald."
"That is very likely, for he has been brought up in the country, and that makes a great difference. Now I am sure that Gerald knows quite as much as most men do, and I think it is too bad for father to treat him like a boy."
"Does he?" asked Ruth innocently.
"Yes; he won't even allow him to have a latch-key, and then he complains if Gerald is rather late home in the evening, and he has to sit up for him. And even mamma annoys him dreadfully sometimes by calling him 'her dear boy.'"
"I thought mothers did that even when their sons were quite grown up," said Ruth.
"I don't think they should," was Julia's reply. "But it is quite too bad of papa to expect poor Gerald to slave away in that office all day. He is quite a tyrant, and grudges the poor fellow any pleasure."
"Julia! Julia! I am sure it is very wrong of you to talk in that way of your parents," cried Ruth reproachfully. "Don't you know the Bible says, 'Honour thy father and mother'?"
"What an old-fashioned, tiresome creature you are!" muttered Julia in a sleepy voice.
CHAPTER VII.
A POOR RELATION.
"When are we to have the picnic, mamma?" asked Julia at breakfast the next morning.
"Any day will suit me; but as your father and Gerald will only be here for a short time, I think we must arrange to have it as early as possible the week after next."
"Let us have it on Monday. Yes, Monday," cried Rupert and Julia together.
"I am going out boating on Monday," said Gerald lazily.
"Tuesday or Wednesday," suggested Mrs. Woburn.
"I am engaged for Tuesday also, but Wednesday is clear, I believe," replied the young man in a careless manner, as if it did not signify much to him whether he formed one of the party or not.
"How horrid of you to put it off so long," exclaimed his sister angrily. "I daresay Wednesday will be wet."
"Nous verrons," he replied, as he sauntered from the room with his hands in his pockets. He looked in again at the door to say, "I shall not be back until the evening, mother;" and in another moment the banging of the