the china and plated tableware, and filled the water pitcher.
Her father came in on his crutches; she hurried from the table, syrup jug in one hand, cruet in the other, and lifted her face to be kissed; then she brought hot plates, coffeepot, and platters, and seated herself at the table where her father and mother were waiting in silence.
When she was seated her father folded his large, pallid, bony hands; her mother clasped hers on the edge of the table, bowing her head; and Ruhannah imitated them. Between her fingers she could see the cat under the table, and she watched it arch its back and gently rub against her chair.
“For what we are about to receive, make us grateful, Eternal Father. This day we should go hungry except for Thy bounty. Without presuming to importune Thee, may we ask Thee to remember all who awake hungry on this winter day… Amen.”
Ruhannah instantly became very busy with her breakfast. The cat beside her chair purred loudly and rose at intervals on its hind legs to twitch her dress; and Ruhannah occasionally bestowed alms and conversation upon it.
“Rue,” said her mother, “you should try to do better with your algebra this week.”
“Yes, I do really mean to.”
“Have you had any more bad-conduct marks?”
“Yes, mother.”
Her father lifted his mild, dreamy eyes of an invalid. Her mother asked:
“What for?”
“For wasting my time in study hour,” said the girl truthfully.
“Were you drawing?”
“Yes, mother.”
“Rue! Again! Why do you persist in drawing pictures in your copy books when you have an hour’s lesson in drawing every week? Besides, you may draw pictures at home whenever you wish.”
“I don’t exactly know why,” replied the girl slowly. “It just happens before I notice what I am doing… Of course,” she explained, “I do recollect that I oughtn’t to be drawing in study hour. But that’s after I’ve begun, and then it seems a pity not to finish.”
Her mother looked across the table at her husband:
“Speak to her seriously, Wilbour.”
The Reverend Mr. Carew looked solemnly at his long-legged and rapidly growing daughter, whose grey eyes gazed back into her father’s sallow visage.
“Rue,” he said in his colourless voice, “try to get all you can out of your school. I haven’t sufficient means to educate you in drawing and in similar accomplishments. So get all you can out of your school. Because, some day, you will have to help yourself, and perhaps help us a little.”
He bent his head with a detached air and sat gazing mildly at vacancy – already, perhaps, forgetting what the conversation was about.
“Mother?”
“What, Rue?”
“What am I going to do to earn my living?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you mean I must go into the mill like everybody else?”
“There are other things. Girls work at many things in these days.”
“What kind of things?”
“They may learn to keep accounts, help in shops–”
“If father could afford it, couldn’t I learn to do something more interesting? What do girls work at whose fathers can afford to let them learn how to work?”
“They may become teachers, learn stenography and typewriting; they can, of course, become dressmakers; they can nurse–”
“Mother!”
“Yes?”
“Could I choose the business of drawing pictures? I know how!”
“Dear, I don’t believe it is practical to–”
“Couldn’t I draw pictures for books and magazines? Everybody says I draw very nicely. You say so, too. Couldn’t I earn enough money to live on and to take care of you and father?”
Wilbour Carew looked up from his reverie:
“To learn to draw correctly and with taste,” he said in his gentle, pedantic voice, “requires a special training which we cannot afford to give you, Ruhannah.”
“Must I wait till I’m twenty-five before I can have my money?” she asked for the hundredth time. “I do so need it to educate myself. Why did grandma do such a thing, mother?”
“Your grandmother never supposed you would need the money until you were a grown woman, dear. Your father and I were young, vigorous, full of energy; your father’s income was ample for us then.”
“Have I got to marry a man before I can get enough money to take lessons in drawing with?”
Her mother’s drawn smile was not very genuine. When a child asks such questions no mother finds it easy to smile.
“If you marry, dear, it is not likely you’ll marry in order to take lessons in drawing. Twenty-five is not old. If you still desire to study art you will be able to do so.”
“Twenty-five!” repeated Rue, aghast. “I’ll be an old woman.”
“Many begin their life’s work at an older age–”
“Mother! I’d rather marry somebody and begin to study art. Oh, don’t you think that even now I could support myself by making pictures for magazines? Don’t you, mother dear?”
“Rue, as your father explained, a special course of instruction is necessary before one can become an artist–”
“But I do draw very nicely!” She slipped from her chair, ran to the old secretary where the accumulated masterpieces of her brief career were treasured, and brought them for her parents’ inspection, as she had brought them many times before.
Her father looked at them listlessly; he did not understand such things. Her mother took them one by one from Ruhannah’s eager hands and examined these grimy Records of her daughter’s childhood.
There were drawings of every description in pencil, in crayon, in mussy water-colours, done on scraps of paper of every shape and size. The mother knew them all by heart, every single one, but she examined each with a devotion and an interest forever new.
There were many pictures of the cat; many of her parents, too – odd, shaky, smeared portraits all out of proportion, but usually recognisable.
A few landscapes varied the collection – a view or two of the stone bridge opposite, a careful drawing of the ruined paper mill. But the majority of the subjects were purely imaginary; pictures of demons and angels, of damsels and fairy princes – paragons of beauty – with castles on adjacent crags and swans adorning convenient ponds.
Her mother rose after a few moments, laid aside the pile of drawings, went
