"Do you remember her name?" "No, I disremember." I should like to have given her a hint that this word is hardly accounted correct, but I suspected that if I undertook to correct Miss Canby's English I should have my hands full. [Pg 66] [Pg 66] "Do you think you stand a chance to get into the book department?" "Mary Ann has agreed to speak for me when there is a vacancy. Do you often come into Macy's, Dr. Fenwick?" "This is my first visit." "You don't mean it? I thought everybody came to Macy's at least once a month." "Truly it looks like it," said I, looking about and noting the crowds of customers. "I hope you'll come again soon," said Ruth, as she turned to wait upon a lady. "I certainly will, Miss Canby. And it won't be altogether to buy goods." Ruth looked gratified and smiled her appreciation of the compliment. Certainly she looked comely and attractive with her rather high-colored country face, and I should have been excusable, being a bachelor, in letting my eyes rest complacently upon her rustic charms. But I was heart-proof so far as Ruth was[Pg 67] concerned, I could not think of seeking a litery wife. No, she was meant for some honest but uncultured young man, whose tastes and education were commensurate with hers. And yet, as I afterwards found, Ruth had made an impression in a quarter quite unexpected. [Pg 67] I was not in search of a wife. It would have been the height of imprudence for me, with my small income and precarious prospects, to think of setting up a home and a family in this great, expensive city. Yet, had it been otherwise, perhaps Ruth would have made me a better wife than some graduate of a fashionable young ladies' seminary with her smattering of French, and superficial knowledge of the various ologies taught in high-class schools. The young woman from
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