CHAPTER X.
"My dear," said Mrs.Alwynn to her husband that morning, as they started for church across the glebe, "if any of the Atherstone party are in church, as they ought to be, for I hear from Mrs.Smith that they are not at all regular at Greenacre--only went once last Sunday, and then late--I shall just tell Ruth that she is to come back to me to-morrow.

A few days won't make any difference to her, and it will fit in so nicely her coming back the day you go to the palace.

After all I've done for Ruth--new curtains to her room, and the piano tuned and everything--I don't think she would like to stay there with friends, and me all by myself, without a creature to speak to.

Ruth may be only a niece by marriage, but she will see in a moment--" And in fact she did.

When Mrs.Alwynn took her aside after church, and explained the case in the all-pervading whisper for which she had apparently taken out a patent, Ruth could not grasp any reason why she should return to Slumberleigh three days before the time, but she saw at once that return she must if Mrs.Alwynn chose to demand it; and so she yielded with a good grace, and sent Mrs.Alwynn back smiling to the lych-gate, where Mr.Alwynn and Mabel Thursby were talking with Dare and Molly, while Charles interviewed the village policeman at a little distance.
"No news of the tramp," said Charles, meeting Ruth at the gate; and they started homeward in different order to that in which they had come, in spite of a great effort at the last moment on the part of Dare, who thought the old way was better.