I will take care and bring you word how the boy is, and what doctor they get; and I will keep an account of the money I spend." "Very well; thank you.

Remember, I trust to you." He meant that he relied on her promise to meet him; but Ruth thought that he was referring to the responsibility of doing the best she could for the child.

He was going away, when a fresh thought struck him, and he turned back into the cottage once more, and addressed Ruth, with a half smile on his countenance: "It seems rather strange, but we have no one to introduce us; my name is Bellingham--yours is-- ?" "Ruth Hilton, sir," she answered, in a low voice, for, now that the conversation no longer related to the boy, she felt shy and restrained.
He held out his hand to shake hers, and just as she gave it to him, the old grandmother came tottering up to ask some question.

The interruption jarred upon him, and made him once more keenly alive to the closeness of the air, and the squalor and dirt by which he was surrounded.
"My good woman," said he to Nelly Brownson, "could you not keep your place a little neater and cleaner?
It is more fit for pigs than human beings.

The air in this room is quite offensive, and the dirt and filth is really disgraceful." By this time he was mounted, and, bowing to Ruth, he rode away.
Then the old woman's wrath broke out.
"Who may you be, that knows no better manners than to come into a poor woman's house to abuse it ?--fit for pigs, indeed! What d'ye call yon fellow ?" "He is Mr Bellingham," said Ruth, shocked at the old woman's apparent ingratitude.