"
Respect kept Ruth silent; but, while she sorrowed over the ignorance of
her child, natural affection was strong at her heart. With the tact of a
woman and the tenderness of a mother, she both saw and felt that severity
was not the means to effect the improvement they desired. Taking a seat
herself, she drew her child to her person, and, first imploring silence by
a glance at those around her, she proceeded, in a manner that was dictated
by the mysterious influence of nature, to fathom the depth of her
daughter's mind.
"Come nearer, Narra-mattah;" she said, using the name to which the other
would alone answer. 'Thou art still in thy youth, my child; but it hath
pleased him whose will is law, to have made thee the witness of many
changes in this varying life. Tell me if thou recallest the days of
infancy, and if thy thoughts ever returned to thy father's house, during
those weary years thou wast kept from our view?'
Ruth used gentle force to draw her daughter nearer while speaking, and
the latter sunk into that posture from which she had just arisen,
kneeling, as she had often done in infancy, at her mother's side.
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