Ruth Jacobi was the girl's name, and she was the orphaned child of a daughter of old Trendellsohn.

Father and mother were both dead; and of her father, who had been dead long, Ruth had no memory.

But she still wore some remains of the black garments which had been given to her at her mother's funeral; and she still grieved bitterly for her mother, having no woman with her in that gloomy house, and no other child to comfort her.

Her grandfather and her uncle were kind to her--kind after their own gloomy fashion; but it was a sad house for a young girl, and Ruth, though she knew nothing of any better abode, found the days to be very long, and the months to be very wearisome.
"What has he been saying to you, Nina ?" the girl asked, taking hold of her friend's dress, to prevent her escape into the street.

"You need not be in a hurry for a minute.