And yet with all this there was one corner deep down in Ruth's
heart so overgrown with "wonderings" and "whys," so thick with
tangled doubts and misgivings, that no cheering ray of certainty
had yet been able to pierce it. Nor had any one tried. Miss
Felicia, good as she was and loving as she had been, had done
nothing in the pruning way--that is, nothing which would let in
any sunshine radiating from Jack. She had talked about him, it is
true; not to her, we may be sure, but to her father, saying how
handsome he had grown and what a fine man he was making of
himself. She had, too, more than once commented--and this before
everybody--on his good manners and his breeding, especially on the
way he had received her the first morning she called, and to his
never apologizing for his miserable surroundings, meagre as they
were--just a theodolite, his father's portrait and half a dozen
books alone being visible, the white walls covered with working
plans. But when the poor girl had tried to draw from her some word
that was personal to himself, or one that might become personal--
and she did try even to the verge of betraying herself, which
would never have done--Miss Felicia had always turned the subject
at once or had pleaded forgetfulness.
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