"Say! you're a wonder, you are, Ruth Fielding. Never anybody got around Gran the way you do, before. You're a wonder!"

Helen and Ann met Ruth in great excitement. "Where under the sun have you been—and in that ragged old gym suit?" gasped Helen.

"You look as though your face was burnt. I believe you've been playing hooky, Ruth Fielding!" cried Ann.

"Right the first time," sighed Ruth, happily. "Oh, I feel so much better. And I know I shall sleep like a brick."

"You mean, a railroad tie, don't you?" demanded Ann. "That's a sleeper!"

"Of course we found your note, and we told Miss Brokaw. But she's got it in for you just the same," said Helen, slangily. "And only guess!"

"Yes! Guess! Ruth! Fielding!" and Ann seized her and danced her about the room. "You missed it by being absent to-day."

"Oh, don't! Never mind all this! I'm tired enough. I've walked miles," groaned Ruth. "What have I missed?"

"Mr. Hammond is in Lumberton. He came to see you about the scenario," Helen eagerly said.

Ruth sat down and clasped her hands, while her cheeks paled. "It's a failure!" she whispered.



CHAPTER XIX

GREAT TIMES

That was not so, however, and Helen and Ann soon blurted out the good news:

"It's a great success!"

"He's going to bring up the company next week and make the pictures at the Hall!"

"He's been with Mrs. Tellingham all the afternoon planning when the pictures shall be taken, and how they shall be taken," Helen said. "I guess it's not a failure!"

"I should say not!" joined in Ann Hicks.

"Oh, girls!"

If it had not been for Ruth's long day in the open and the fact that her nerves had become much quieter, she could never have forced back the tears of relief that answered so quickly these reassuring words.

Then a great flood of thankfulness welled up in her heart. She had accomplished something really worth while! Later, when she saw, on the screen, the story she had written, she was to feel this gratitude and joy again.

She went to bed that night and slept, as she had promised, until Mrs. Sadoc Smith knocked on the door for them all to rise. She got up with all the oppression lifted from her mind, and wanted to race the other girls to the Hall before breakfast.

"It won't do for you, young lady, to go gallavanting into the woods with Curly another day," said Helen, holding on to Ruth. "You're neither to hold nor to bind after such an expedition. I say, girls, let's all go with Curly next time."

Amy had been very sullen ever since the evening before. Now she snapped: "I guess Curly didn't want her—or any of us. Ruth just forced herself upon him. He doesn't like girls."

"Bless the infant!" said Ann. "What's got her now?"

"Jealous of our Ruth, I declare!" laughed Helen.

Amy burst out crying and ran ahead, nor did the older girls see her at the breakfast table. Ruth was sorry about this. She had only then begun to win Amy Gregg's confidence, and now she feared that the girl would be angry with her.

That day, however, Ruth was too happy to think much about Amy Gregg.

Recitations went with a rush. Miss Brokaw even was disarmed, for all Ruth's quickness and coolness seemed to have returned to her. She did not fail once and the strict teacher praised her.

Besides, there was a long conference with Mrs. Tellingham and Mr. Hammond. The scenario of "The Heart of a Schoolgirl" was to be filmed at once.

"We will do our best to release it for first presentation in six weeks," the producer said. "And I assure you that means some quick work. You girls," he added, to Ruth, "must do your prettiest when we take the pictures here. Your physical culture instructor will drill you in marching, and forming the tableaux we require. Your exposition of the legend of the Marble Harp is a clever bit of invention, Ruth, and in the picture will make a hit, I am sure."

Of course Ruth was proud; why should she not be? But her head was not turned by all the flattering things that were said to her.

The girls adored her. The fact that they were all working in unison toward the rebuilding of the dormitory, removed from the daily life and intercourse of the big boarding school one of its more unpleasant features.

It was only natural that there should be cliques among two hundred girls. But now rivalries were put aside. All were striving for the same end. Some of the girls interested various societies in their home towns to hold fairs and bazaars for the benefit of Briarwood Hall.

Personal appeals were made directly to every girl on the alumni list—and some of those "girls" now had girls of their own almost old enough to attend Briarwood.

By these methods the dormitory fund was swelled. In the results from the moving picture drama, however, was the possibility for the greatest help. Mrs. Tellingham risked rebuilding the dormitory on the same scale as the burned structure, because of Mr. Hammond's enthusiasm over Ruth's achievement.

The days of early spring passed in swift procession now. It seemed that the longer the days grew, the faster they seemed to go. There were not hours enough in which to accomplish all that the girls, who looked toward graduation in June, wished.

Even Jennie Stone worked harder and took her school tasks more seriously than ever before.

"But, see here!" she said to her mates one day, "here's some 'hot ones' Miss Brokaw has been handing the primes, and I believe they'd puzzle some of us big girls. Listen! 'What is longitude?' Sue Mellen came to me, puzzled, about that," chuckled Jennie, "and I told her longitude is those lengthwise stripes on a watermelon."

"Oh, Heavy!" gasped Lluella. "How could you?"

"Didn't hurt me at all," proclaimed Jennie, calmly. "And I told her that a 'ski' is what a Russian has on the end of his name. That quite satisfiedski Miss Mellenski, whether it does Miss Brokawski or not!"

Mrs. Tellingham gave the school a serious talk the day before the film company arrived to take the first pictures for Ruth's play. She read and explained that part of the scenario in which the Briarwood girls would appear, and begged their serious co-operation with the director who would have the making of the film in charge.

Ruth still shrank from seeing Mr. Grimes again; but she found that, while engaged in the work of making these pictures, he behaved quite differently from the way he had acted the day she had first seen him on the bank of the Lumano river.

He was patient, but insistent. He knew just what effect he wanted and always got it in the end. And Ruth and Helen told each other that, ugly as he could be, Mr. Grimes was really a most wonderful director. They did not wonder that Hazel Gray expressed her desire to work under Mr. Grimes, harsh as he had been to her.

It was difficult for the girls—even for Ruth who had written the scenario—to follow the trend of the story of "The Heart of a Schoolgirl" by closely watching the taking of these scenes in and about Briarwood Hall; for they were not taken in proper rotation.

Mr. Grimes had his schedule before him and he skipped from one part of the story's action to another in a most bewildering way, getting the scenes about the school filmed in each "setting" in succession, rather than following the thread of the story.

Nor could Ruth judge the effect of the several pictures. She was too close to them. There was no perspective.

Sometimes when Mr. Grimes seemed the most satisfied, Ruth could see nothing in that scene at all. Again he would make the participants go over and over a scene that seemed perfectly clear the first time.

Hazel Gray and several other professional performers were at Briarwood and had their parts in the scenes with the schoolgirls. Hazel played the heroine of Ruth's drama, but Mr. Hammond had insisted upon Ruth herself acting the part of the heroine's chum—a not unimportant role.

Ruth did not feel that she had histrionic ability; but she was so anxious for the moving picture to be a success, that she would have tried her very best to suit Mr. Grimes in any role. She was surprised, however, when he warmly praised her work in her one scene which was at all emotional.

"You naturally feel your part in this scene, Miss Fielding," he said. "Not everybody could get the action before the camera so well."

"'Praise from Sir Hubert!'" whispered Hazel Gray, smiling at her young friend. "You should be proud."

Ruth was not quite sure whether she was proud of this unsuspected talent or not. She had written to Aunt Alvirah about her acting in the play, and the good woman had warned her seriously against the folly of vanity and the sin of frivolity. Aunt Alvirah had been brought up to doubt very much the morality of those who performed upon the stage for the amusement of the public.

What Mr. Jabez Potter thought of his niece's acting for the screen, even his opinion of her writing a play, was a sealed matter to Ruth; for the old miller, as Aunt Alvirah informed her, grew grumpier and more morose all the time. "He is a caution to get along with," wrote Aunt Alvirah Boggs in her cramped handwriting. "I don't know what's going to become of him. You'd think he was weaned on wormwood and drunk nothing but boneset tea all his life long."

However, it must be confessed that Ruth Fielding's thoughts were not much upon her Uncle Jabez or the Red Mill these days. The work of making the pictures occupied all her thought that was not taken up with study.

Jennie Stone, Sarah Fish, Helen, Lluella and Belle, all appeared prominently in the "close up" scenes Mr. Grimes took. In the classroom, dining hall, the graduation march, and in the Italian garden scenes, most of the seniors and juniors were used.

A splendid gymnasium scene pleased the girls, and views of the hand-ball, captain's-ball, tennis and basket-ball courts, with the girls in action, were bound to be spectacular, too.

These typical boarding school scenes closely followed the text of Ruth's play. Hazel and Ruth were in them all; and on the tennis court Hazel and Ruth played Helen and Sarah Fish a fast game, the former couple winning by sheer skill and pluck.

Ruth naturally had to neglect some duties. Discipline was more or less relaxed, and she lost sight of Amy Gregg.

One evening the smaller girl did not appear at Mrs. Sadoc Smith's after supper. Of late the other girls had let Amy Gregg alone and Ruth had ceased to watch her so carefully. But when darkness fell and Amy did not appear, Ruth telephoned to the school. Miss Scrimp, who answered the call, had not seen her. It was learned, too, that Amy had not been at the supper table. Nobody had seen her depart, but it was a fact that she had disappeared from Briarwood Hall sometime during the afternoon. Nor had she been near Mrs. Sadoc Smith's since early morning.



CHAPTER XX

A CLOUD ARISES

While Mrs. Smith and Helen and Ann Hicks were "running around in circles," as Ann put it, wondering what had become of Amy Gregg, Ruth did the only practical thing she could think of.

She hunted up Curly.

"Old Scratch!" ejaculated the boy. "I haven't seen Amy to-day. Sure I haven't! No, Ma'am!"

"Not at all?" asked Ruth. "And don't you know where to look for her?"

"Oh, she'll take care of herself," said the boy, carelessly. "She isn't as soft as most girls."

"But Mrs. Tellingham will be awfully angry with me," Ruth cried. "I was supposed to look out for her when she came over here."

"Shucks!" exclaimed Curly. "Amy didn't want to be looked out for."

"That doesn't absolve me from my duty," sighed Ruth. "Haven't you the least idea where she's gone?"

"No, Ruth, I haven't," the boy declared earnestly. "If I had I'd tell you."

"I believe you, Curly."

"She and I haven't been so friendly," admitted the boy, in some embarrassment, "since you went fishing with me that time."

"Goodness me! she's not jealous?" cried Ruth.

"I don't know what you call it," said Curly, hanging his head. "It's some foolish girl stuff. Boys don't act that way. I told her I'd take her fishing, too—if she'd get up early enough." Here Curly began to laugh. "You can bet, Ruth, that wherever she is, she got there before dark and won't come back until daylight."

"What do you mean?" asked Ruth, sharply.

"I know she's afraid as she can be of the dark. She's a regular baby about that. Of course, she won't own up to it."

"Why! I never knew it," Ruth exclaimed.

"She wouldn't go fishing because I start so early—while it's still dark. Catch her out of the house before sun-up!"

"Oh, Curly! I blame myself," gasped Ruth. "I never knew that about her. Are you sure?"

"'Course I am. She's scared of the dark. I can make her mad any time by just hinting at it. So that proves it, don't it?" responded this young philosopher.

"Maybe she has gone somewhere and is afraid to come back till morning," repeated Ruth.

"She's been after me to take her up to that dam where we caught the fish, in the afternoon; but I told her we couldn't get home before pitch dark. I ought to have taken her along, I guess, and said nothing," Curly added reflectively.

"Last night she was talking about it. She said I should take her because I took you there."

"You don't suppose she's gone clear over there by herself, do you?" Ruth cried, in alarm.

"I don't believe she knows how to start, even," Curly said easily. "And I told her last night she'd better not go anywhere till she got rid of that sore throat."

"Sore throat!" repeated Ruth, with added worriment. "I never knew her throat was sore."

"She told me, she did," Curly said. "It was pretty bad, I guess, too. I guess maybe she was afraid to say anything about it. I don't like to tell Gran when there's anything the matter with me. She mixes up such nasty messes for me to take!"

"The poor child!" murmured Ruth, thinking only of Amy Gregg. "What shall we do?"

"I'll get a lantern and we'll go hunt around for her," suggested Curly, ripe for any adventure.

"But where will we hunt?"

"Maybe she's gone with some other girl somewhere."

"You know that can't be so," Ruth said. "There isn't a girl friendly enough with her for her to say ten pleasant words to. The poor little mite! I'm just as sorry as I can be for her, Curly."

"Well!" returned Curly, "what did she want to tell a story for? I know what she did. She left the candle burning in her room because she was afraid to come back to it in the dark after supper. I made her own up to that."

"Oh! the poor child!" cried Ruth.

"And she didn't understand the electric light. They don't have electricity in the town where she comes from; natural gas, instead. So that's the why of the fire," Curly said. "I picked that out of her long ago."

"And she was so close-mouthed with us!" exclaimed Ruth.

"She doesn't like it at Briarwood. She doesn't like the girls. She doesn't like the teachers. Old Scratch!" exclaimed the boy, "I don't blame her—and I guess I'd run away myself."

"You don't suppose she has run away, Curly Smith? Not for keeps?"

"I don't know," answered the boy. "Her folks don't treat her right, I guess. They sent her to Briarwood to get her out the way. So she says. And she's afraid of what her father will do to her if he ever hears about that candle and about how the dormitory got afire."

"That's why she wouldn't write to him for a contribution to the rebuilding fund," cried Ruth.

"I guess so," said Curly. "She never said much to me about it. I just wormed it out of her, as you might say. She isn't so awful happy here, you bet."

"Oh, Curly! I blame myself," groaned Ruth.

"What for?"

"Because I ought to have learned more about her—got closer to her."

"You might's well try to get close to a prickly porcupine," laughed the boy. "She'd made up her mind to hate the rest of you girls and she's going to keep on hating you till the end of time. That's the sort of a girl Amy is."

"And nothing to be proud about," declared Ruth, with some vexation. "Don't you think it, Curly?"

"Huh! I don't. You're silly, Ruth—but I like you a whole lot more than I do Amy."

"Goodness! what a polite boy," cried Ruth. "There's the telephone!"

She ran back upstairs, hoping the message would be that Amy Gregg was found. But that was not it. Over the wire Mrs. Tellingham herself was speaking to Ann.

"No, Ma'am. We don't know where to look for her," Ann said.

"We haven't any idea."

"Yes, Ma'am; Helen and I have looked. She hasn't taken any of her clothes."

"Oh, goodness! you don't really suppose she's run away?"

"Do come here, Ruth, and hear what Mrs. Tellingham says!"

Ruth went to the telephone and heard the principal of Briarwood Hall talking. What Mrs. Tellingham said was certainly startling.

It seemed that Amy Gregg had received a letter that afternoon. It was from her father, and, of course, was not opened by the principal. But afterward—after the child had disappeared from the premises, of course—the letter came into Mrs. Tellingham's hands. It was found by Tony Foyle down by the marble statue in the sunken garden. Evidently Amy had run there, where she would be out of the way, to read it.

It was a very stern letter and accused Amy of some past offense before she had left home. It likewise said that Mr. Gregg had received an anonymous letter from some girl at Briarwood, telling about the fire, and about Amy's supposed part in starting the blaze, and complaining that Amy would not ask for a contribution to the dormitory fund.

Mr. Gregg was extremely angry, and he told his daughter that he would come to Briarwood in a few days and investigate the whole matter. Why Amy Gregg should run away was now clear. She was afraid to meet her father.

"Make sure that the poor child is nowhere about Mrs. Smith's, Ruth," Mrs. Tellingham begged her over the wire. "I am sure I should not know what to say to Mr. Gregg if he comes and finds that his daughter has disappeared. The poor child! I shall not sleep to-night, Ruth Fielding. Amy must be found."

Ruth felt just that way herself. No matter what her friends said in contradiction, Ruth felt that she was partly to blame. She should have kept a close watch over Amy Gregg.

"I let that picture-making get in between us," she wailed. "I'm glad it's all done and out of the way. I'd rather not have written the scenario at all, than have anything happen to Amy."

"You're a goose, Ruthie," declared her chum. "You're not to blame. Her father's harshness with her has made the child run away. If she has."

"Her own unhappy disposition has caused all the trouble," said Ann, bitterly.

"Oh! don't speak so," begged Ruth. "Suppose something has happened to her."

"Nothing ever happens to kids like her," said Ann, bruskly.

But that was not so. Something already had happened to Amy Gregg. She was lost!



CHAPTER XXI

HUNTING FOR AMY

In spite of her seemingly heartless words, it was Ann Hicks who agreed to go with Ruth to hunt for the lost girl. Helen frankly acknowledged that she was afraid to tramp about the woods and fields at night, with only a boy and a lantern for company.

"Come along, Ruthie. I have helped find stray cattle on the range more times than you could shake a stick at," declared good-natured Ann Hicks. "Rouse out that lazy boy of Grandma Smith's."

Mrs. Sadoc Smith had to give just so much advice, and see that the expedition was properly equipped. A thermos bottle filled with coffee went into Ruth's bag, while Curly was laden with a substantial lunch, a roll of bandages, a bottle of arnica and some smelling-salts, beside the lantern.

"Huh!" protested the boy to Ann, "if she was sending us out to find a lost boy all she'd send would be that cat-o'-nine-tails of hers that hangs in the woodshed. I know Gran!"

"And the cat-o'-nine-tails, too, eh?" chuckled the Western girl.

"You bet!" agreed Curly, feelingly.

They set forth with just one idea about the search. Amy Gregg, as far as Curly could remember, had expressed a wish to go to but one place. That was the old dam up in Norman's Woods, where he and Ruth had gone fishing.

They were quite sure that it would be useless to hunt for the girl in any neighbor's house. And Mrs. Sadoc Smith's premises had already been searched. They had shouted for Amy till their throats were sore before the news had come from Briarwood Hall. The fact that Amy had been suffering from a physical ailment, as well as one of the mind, troubled Ruth exceedingly.

"Maybe she was just 'sickening for some disease,' as Aunt Alvirah says," the girl of the Red Mill told Ann Hicks, as they went along. "A sore throat is the forerunner of so many fevers and serious troubles. She might be coming down with scarlet fever."

"Goodness gracious! don't say that" begged Ann.

Ruth feared it, nevertheless. The two girls followed Curly through the narrow path, the dripping bushes wetting their skirts, and briers at times scratching them. Ann was a good walker and could keep up quite as well as Ruth. Beside, Curly was not setting a pace on this occasion, but stumbled on with the lantern, rather blindly.

"Tell you what," he grumbled. "I don't fancy this job a mite."

"You're not 'afraid to go home in the dark,' are you, Curly?" asked Ann, with scorn.

"Not going home just now," responded the boy, grinning. "But the woods aren't any place to be out in this time of night—unless you've got a dog and a gun. There! see that?"

"A cat, that's all," declared Ruth, who had seen the little black and white animal run across their track in the flickering and uncertain light of the lantern. "Here, kitty! kitty! Puss! puss! puss!"

"Hold on!" cried the excited Curly. "You needn't be so particular about calling that cat."

"Why not? It must be somebody's cat that's strayed," said Ruth.

"Ya-as. I guess it is. It's a pole-cat," growled Curly. "And if it came when you called it, you wouldn't like it so much, I guess."

"Oh, goodness!" gasped Ann. "Don't be so friendly with every strange animal you see, Ruth Fielding. A pole-cat!"

"Wish I had a gun!" exclaimed Curly. "I'd shoot that skunk."

"Glad you didn't then," said Ruth, promptly. "Poor little thing."

"Ya-as," drawled the boy. "'Poor little thing.' It was just aiming for somebody's hencoop. One of 'em 'll eat chickens faster than Gran's hens can hatch 'em out."

Pushing on through the woods at this slow pace brought them to the ruined grist mill and the old dam not before ten o'clock. There was a pale and watery moon, the shine of which glistened on the falling water over the old logs of the dam, but gave the searchers little light. The moon's rays merely aided in making the surroundings of the mill more ghostly.

Nobody lived within a mile of the mill site, Curly assured the girls, and if Amy had found this place it was not likely that she had likewise found the nearest human habitation, for that was beyond the mill and directly opposite to Briarwood and the town of Lumberton.

They shouted for Amy, and then searched the ghostly premises of the ruined mill. Years before the roof had been burned away and some of the walls fallen in. Owls made their nests in the upper part of the building, as the party found, much to the girls' excitement when a huge, spread-winged creature dived out of a window and went "whish! whish! whish!" off through the long grass, to hunt for mice or other small, night-prowling creatures.

"Goodness! that owl is as big as a turkey!" gasped Ruth, clinging to Ann in her fright.

"Bigger," announced Curly. "Old Scratch! I'd like to shoot him and have him stuffed."

"I'd rather have some of the turkey stuffing," chuckled Ann Hicks. "Owl would be rather tough, I reckon."

"Oh, not to eat!" scoffed Curly. "I'd put him in Gran's parlor. And that reminds me of an owl story——"

"Don't tell us any old stories; tell us new ones, if you must tell any," Ann interrupted.

"How do you know whether this is old or young till I've told it?" demanded Curly, as they all three sat on the ruined doorstep of the mill to rest.

"Quite right, Curly," sighed Ruth. "Go ahead. Make us laugh. I feel like crying."

"Then you can cry over it," retorted the boy. "There was a butcher who had a stuffed owl in his shop and an old Irishman came in and asked him: 'How mooch for the broad-faced bur-r-rd?'

"'It's an owl,' said the butcher.

"The old man repeated his question—'how mooch for the broad-faced bur-r-rd?'

"'It's an owl, I tell you!' exclaimed the butcher.

"'I know it's ould,' says the Irishman. 'But what d'ye want for it? It'll make soup for me boar-r-rders!'"

"That's a good story," admitted Ruth, "but try to think up some way of finding poor little Amy, instead of telling funny tales."

"Oh, how can I help——"

Curly stopped. Ann, who was sitting in the middle, grabbed both him and Ruth. "Listen to that!" she whispered. "That isn't another owl, is it?"

"What is it?" gasped Ruth.

Somewhere in the ruin of the mill there was a noise. It might have been the voice of an animal or of a bird, but it sounded near enough like a human being to scare all three of the young people on the doorstep.

"Sa-ay," quavered Curly. "You don't suppose there are such things as ghosts, do you, girls?"

"No, I don't!" snapped Ruth. "Don't try to scare us either, Curly."

"Honest, I'm not. I'm right here," cried the boy. "You know I never made that noise——"

"There it is again!" exclaimed Ann.

The sound was like the cry of something in distress. Ruth got up suddenly and tried to put on a brave front. "I can't sit here and listen to that," she said.

"Let's go," urged Ann. "I'm ready."

"Oh, say——" began Curly, when Ruth interrupted him by seizing the lantern.

"Don't fret, Curly Smith," she said. "We're not going without finding out what that sound means."

"Maybe it's young owls, and the old one will come back and pick our eyes out," suggested Ann.

"Get a club, Curly," commanded Ruth. "We'll be ready, then, for man or beast."

This order gave Curly confidence, and made him pluck up his own waning courage. These girls depended upon him, and he was not the boy to back down before even a ghostly Unknown.

He found a club and went side by side with Ruth into the mill. The sound that had disturbed them was repeated. Ruth was sure, now, that it was somebody sobbing.

"Amy! Amy Gregg!" she called again.

"Pshaw!" murmured Ann. "It isn't Amy. She'd have been out of here in a hurry when we shouted for her before."

Ruth was not so sure of that. They came to a break in the flooring. Once there had been steps here leading down into the cellar of the mill, but the steps had rotted away.

"Amy!" called Ruth again. She knelt and held the lantern as far down the well as she could reach. The sound of sobbing had ceased.

"Amy, dear!" cried Ruth. "It's Ruth and Ann, And Curly is with us. Do answer if you hear me!"

There was a murmur from below. Ann cried out in alarm, but Curly exclaimed: "I believe that's Amy, Ruth! She must be hurt—the silly thing. She's tumbled down this old well."

"How will we get to her?" cried Ruth. "Amy! how did you get down there? Are you hurt, Amy?"

"Go away!" said a faint voice from below.

"Old Scratch! Isn't that just like her?" groaned Curly. "She was hiding from us."

"Here," said Ruth, drawing up the lantern and setting it on the floor. "It can't be very deep. I'm going to drop down there, Curly, and then you pass down the lantern to me."

"You'll break your neck, Ruth!" cried Ann.

"No. I'm not going to risk my neck at all," Ruth calmly affirmed.

She set the lantern on the broken floor and swung herself down into the black hole. She hung by her hands and her feet did not touch the bottom. Suddenly she felt a qualm of terror. Perhaps the cellar was a good deal deeper than she had supposed!

She could not raise herself up again, and she almost feared to drop. "Let down the light, Curly!" she whispered.



CHAPTER XXII

DISASTER THREATENS

Before Curly could comply with Ruth's whispered request, her fingers slipped on the edge of the flooring. "Oh!" she cried out, and—dropped as much as three inches!

"Goodness me, Ruth!" gasped Ann Hicks. "Are you killed?"

"No—o. But I might as well have been as to be scared to death," declared the girl of the Red Mill. "I never thought the cellar was so shallow."

There was a rustling near by. Ruth thought of rats and almost screamed aloud. "Give me the lantern—quick!" she called up to Curly Smith.

"Here you are," said that youth. "And if Amy is down there she ought to be ashamed of herself—making us so much trouble."

Amy was there, as Ruth saw almost immediately when she could throw the radiance of the lantern about her. But Ruth did not feel like scolding the younger girl.

Amy had crept away into a corner. Her movements made the rustling Ruth had heard. She hid her face against her arm and sobbed with abandonment. Her dress was torn and muddy, her shoes showed that she had waded in mire. She had lost her hat and her flaxen hair was a tangle of briers and green burrs.

"My dear!" cried Ruth, kneeling down beside her. "What does it mean? Why did you come here? Oh, you're sick!"

A single glance at the flushed face and neck of the smaller girl, and a tentative touch upon her wrist, assured Ruth of that last fact. Amy seemed burning up with fever. Ruth had never seen a case of scarlet fever, but she feared that might be Amy's trouble.

"How long have you been here?" she asked Amy.

"Si—since—since it got dark," choked the girl.

"Is your throat sore?" asked Ruth, anxiously.

"Yes, it is; aw—awful sore."

"And you're feverish," said Ruth.

"I—I'm aw—all shivery, too," wept Amy Gregg, quite given up to misery now.

Ruth was confident that the smaller girl had developed the fever that she feared. Chill, fever, sore throat, and all, made the diagnosis seem quite reasonable.

"How did you get into this cellar?" she asked Amy.

"There's a hole in the underpinning over yonder," said the culprit.

"Come on, then; we'll get out that way. Can you walk?"

"Oh—oh—yes," choked Amy.

She proved this by immediately starting out of the cellar. Ruth lit the way with the lantern.

"Hi!" shouted Curly Smith, "where are you going with that light?"

"Come back to the door," commanded Ruth's muffled voice in the cellar. "You can find your way all right."

"What do you know about that?" demanded Ann. "Leaves us in the lurch for that miserable child, who ought to be walloped."

"Oh, Ann, don't say that!" cried Ruth, as she and the sick girl appeared at the mill door. "No! don't come near us. I'll carry the lantern myself and lead Amy. She's not feeling well, but she can walk. We must get her to Mrs. Smith's just as soon as possible and call a doctor."

"What's the matter with her?" demanded Curly, curiously.

"She feels bad. That's enough," said Ruth, shortly. "Come on, Amy."

For once Amy Gregg was glad to accept Ruth Fielding's help. She had no idea what Ruth thought was the matter with her, and she stumbled on beside the older girl, sleepy and ill, given up to utter misery. Curly and Ann began to be suspicious when Ruth forbade them to approach Amy and herself.

"Old Scratch!" whispered the boy to the Western girl. "I bet Amy's got small-pox or something. Ruth Fielding will catch it, too."

"Hush!" exclaimed Ann, fiercely. "It's not as bad as that."

It was a long walk to Mrs. Sadoc Smith's. At the last, Ruth almost carried Amy, who was not a particularly small girl. Curly grabbed the lantern and insisted upon walking close to them.

"No matter if I do catch the epizootic; guess I'll get over it," said the boy.

They finally came to the Smith house. Helen and Mrs. Sadoc Smith came out on the porch when the dog barked. Ruth made Ann and Curly go ahead and held back with the sick girl.

"You go right upstairs with Helen, Ann," commanded Ruth. "I want to talk to Mrs. Smith about Amy. She must be put in a warm room downstairs."

Mrs. Sadoc Smith agreed to this proposal the instant she saw Amy's flushed face and heard her muttering.

"You telephone for Doctor Lambert, Henry," commanded Mrs. Smith. "We'll have him give a look at her—though I could dose her myself, I reckon, and bring her out all right."

Ruth feared the worst. She secretly stuck to her first diagnosis that Amy had scarlet fever, but she did not say this to Mrs. Smith. They put Amy to bed between blankets, and Mrs. Smith succeeded in getting the girl to drink a dose of hot tea.

"That'll start her perspiring, which won't do a bit of harm," she said to Ruth. "But I never saw anybody's face so red before—and her hands and arms, too. She's breaking all out, I do declare."

Ruth was thinking: "If they have to quarantine Amy, I'll be quarantined with her. I'll have to nurse her instead of going to school. Poor little thing! she will require somebody's constant attention.

"But, oh dear!" added the girl of the Red Mill, "what will become of my school work? I'll never be able to graduate in the world. Lucky those moving pictures are taken—I won't be needed any more in those. Oh, dear!"

Ruth did not allow a murmur to escape her lips, however. She insisted on remaining by the patient all night, too. Mrs. Smith was not able to quiet the sick girl as well as Ruth did when the delirium Amy developed became wilder.

It was almost daylight before Dr. Lambert came. He had been out of town on a case, but came at once when he returned to Lumberton and found the call from Mrs. Sadoc Smith's.

"What is it, Doctor?" asked the old lady. "She's as red as a lobster. Is it anything catching? This girl ought not to be here, if it is."

"This girl had better remain here till we find out just what is the matter," the doctor returned, scowling in a puzzled way at the patient. He had seen at once that Ruth could control Amy.

"But what is it?"

"Fever. Delirium. You can see for yourself. What its name is, I'll tell you when I come again. Keep on just as you are doing, and give her this soothing medicine, and plenty of cracked ice—on her tongue, at least. That is what is the matter; she is consumed with thirst. I'll have to see that eruption again before I can say for sure what the matter is."

He went, and left the house in a turmoil of excitement. Helen and Ann did not wish to go to Briarwood and leave Ruth; but Mrs. Tellingham commanded them to. Much to his delight, Curly was kept out of his school to run errands.

Ruth got a nap on the lounge in the sitting room, and felt better. The doctor returned at nine o'clock in the forenoon and by that time the sick girl's face was so swollen that she could scarcely see out of her eyes. Her hands and wrists were puffed badly, too.

"Where has she been?" demanded Dr. Lambert.

Ruth told him what they supposed had happened to Amy the day before and where she had been found late at night.

"Humph!" grunted the medical practitioner. "That's what I thought. Effect of the Rhus Toxicodendron. Bad case."

This sounded very terrible to Ruth until she suddenly remembered something she had read in her botany. A great feeling of relief came over her.

"Oh! poison-ash!" she cried.

"Good land! Nothin' but poison ivy?" demanded Mrs. Sadoc Smith.

"Poison oak, or poison sumac—whatever you have a mind to call it. But a bad case of it, I assure you. I'll leave more of the cooling draught; and I'll send up a salve to put on her face and hands. Don't let it get into the poor child's eyes—and don't let her tear off the mask which she will have to wear."

"Then there is no danger of scarlet fever," whispered Ruth, feeling relieved.



CHAPTER XXIII

PUTTING ONE'S BEST FOOT FORWARD

Amy Gregg's escapade created a lot of excitement at Briarwood Hall. Inasmuch as it affected Ruth, the whole school was in a flutter about it.

Helen and Ann had come to the Hall, late for breakfast, and spread the news in the dining hall. They were both sure, by Ruth's actions and the doctor's first noncommittal report, that Amy had some contagious disease. Curly had made a deal of the sore throat Amy had confessed to.

"And if that's so," Helen said, almost in tears, "poor Ruth will be quarantined for weeks."

"Why, Helen, how will she graduate?" gasped Lluella.

"She won't! She can't!" declared Ruth's chum. "It will be dreadful!"

"I say!" cried Jennie, thoroughly alarmed. "We musn't let her stay there and nurse that young one. Why! what ever would we do if Ruthie Fielding didn't graduate?"

"The class would be without a head," declared Mercy.

"It would be without a heart, at least—and a great, big one overflowing with love and tenderness," cried Nettie Parsons, wiping her eyes.

"I don't want any more breakfast," said Jennie, pushing her plate away. "Don't talk like that, Nettie. You'll get me to crying too. And that always spoils my digestion."

"If Ruth isn't with us when we get our diplomas, I'm sure I don't want any!" exclaimed Mary Cox. And she meant it, too. Mary Cox believed that she owed her brother's life to Ruth Fielding, and although she was not naturally a demonstrative girl, there was nobody at Briarwood Hall who admired the girl of the Red Mill more than Mary.

In fact, the threat of disaster to Ruth's graduation plans cast a pall of gloom over the school. The moving pictures were forgotten; Amy Gregg's part in the destruction of the West Dormitory ceased to be a topic of conversation. Was Ruth Fielding going to be held in quarantine? grew to be a more momentous question than any other.

Ruth, however, was only absent from her accustomed haunts for two days. The second day she remained to attend the patient because Amy begged so hard to have her stay.

In her weakness and pain the sullen, secretive girl had turned instinctively to the one person who had been uniformly gentle and kind to her throughout all her trouble. Nothing that Amy had done or said, had turned Ruth from her; and the barriers of girl's nature and of her evil passions were broken down.

It was not, perhaps, wholly Amy Gregg's fault that her disposition was so warped. She had received bad advice from some aunts, who had likewise set the child a bad example in their treatment of Mr. Gregg's second wife, when he had brought her home to be a mother to Amy.

The poor child suffered so much from the effect of the poison ivy that the other girls, and not alone those of her own grade, "just had to be sorry for Amy," as Mary Pease said.

"To think!" said that excitable young girl. "She might even lose her eyesight if she's not careful. My! it must be dreadful to get poisoned with that nasty ivy. I'll be afraid to go into the woods the whole summer."

Of course, it took time for these sentiments to circulate through the school, and for a better feeling for Amy Gregg to come to the surface; but the poor girl was laid up for two weeks in Mrs. Sadoc Smith's best bedroom, and a fortnight is a long time in a girls' boarding school. At least, it sometimes seems so to the pupils.

What helped change the girls' opinion of Amy, too, was the fact that Mrs. Tellingham announced in chapel one morning that Mr. Gregg had sent his check for five hundred dollars toward the rebuilding of the dormitory, the walls of which now were completed, and the roof on.

She spoke, too, of the reason Amy had left her candle burning in her lonely room in the old West Dormitory that fatal evening. "We failed in our duty, both as teachers and fellow-pupils," Mrs. Tellingham said. "I hope that no other girl who enters Briarwood Hall will ever be neglected and left alone as Amy Gregg was, no matter what the new comer's disposition or attitude toward us may be."

To hear the principal take herself to task for lack of foresight and kindness to a new pupil, made a deep impression upon the school at large, and when Amy Gregg appeared on the campus again she was welcomed with gentleness by the other girls. Although Amy Gregg still doubted and shrank from them for some time, before the end of the term she had her chums, and was one of a set whose bright, particular star was her one-time enemy, Mary Pease.

Meanwhile, the older girls—the seniors who were to graduate—had a new problem. The films for "The Heart of a Schoolgirl" were reported almost ready. Mr. Hammond was to release them as soon as he could, in order to bring all the aid to the dormitory fund possible before the end of the semester.

Now the query was, "How is the picture to be advertised?" Merely the ordinary billing in front of the picture playhouses and on the display boards, was not enough. An interest must be stirred of a deeper and broader nature than that which such a casual manner of advertising could be expected to engender.

"How'll we do it?" demanded Jennie, with as much solemnity as it was possible for her rosy, round face to express. "We should invent some catch-phrase to introduce the great film—something as effective as 'Good evening! have you used Higgin's Toothpaste?' or, 'You-must-have-a pound-cake.' You know, something catchy that will stick in people's minds."

"It has taken years and years to make some of those catchy trademarks universal," objected Ruth, seriously. "Our advertising must be done in a hurry."

"Well, we've got to put our best foot forward, somehow," declared Helen. "Everybody must be made to know that the Briarwood girls have a show of their own—a five-reel film that is a corker——"

"Hear! hear!" cried Belle. "Wait till the censor gets hold of that word."

"Quite right," agreed Ruth. "Let us be lady-like, though the heavens fall!"

"And still be natural?" chuckled Jennie. "Impossible!"

"Her best foot forward—one's best foot forward." Mary Cox kept repeating Helen's remark while the other girls chattered. Mary had a talent for drawing. "Say!" she suddenly exclaimed. "I could make a dandy poster with that for a text."

"With what for a text?" somebody asked.

"'Putting One's Best Foot Forward,'" declared Mary Cox, and suddenly seizing charcoal and paper, she sketched the idea quickly—a smartly dressed up-to-date Briarwood girl with her right foot advanced—and that foot, as in a foreshortened photograph—of enormous size.

The poster took with the girls immensely. There was something chic about the figure, and the face, while looking like nobody in particular, was a composite of several of the girls. At least, it was an inspiration on the part of Mary Cox, and when Mrs. Tellingham saw it, she approved.

"We'll just send this 'Big Foot Girl' broadcast," cried Helen, who was proud that her spoken word had been the inspiration for Mary's clever cartoon. "Come on! we'll have it stamped on our stationery, and write to everyone we know bespeaking their best attention when they see the poster in their vicinity."

"And we'll have new postcards made of Briarwood Hall, with Mary's figure printed on the reverse," Sarah Fish said.

They sent a proof of the poster to Mr. Hammond, and to his billing of "The Heart of a Schoolgirl" he immediately added "The Briarwood Girl with Her Best Foot Forward." Locally, during the next few weeks, this poster became immensely popular.

The campaign of advertising did not end with Mary's poster—no, indeed! In every way they could think of the girls of Briarwood Hall spread the tidings of the forthcoming release of the school play.

Lumberton's advertising space was plastered with the Briarwood Girl and with other billing weeks before the film could be seen. As every moving picture theatre in the place clamored for the film, Mr. Hammond had refused to book it with any. The Opera House was engaged for three days and nights, a high price for tickets asked, and it was expected that a goodly sum would be raised for the dormitory right at home.

However, before the picture of "The Heart of a Schoolgirl" came to town, something else happened in the career of Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill which greatly influenced her future.



CHAPTER XXIV

"SEEING OURSELVES AS OTHERS SEE US"

"I want to tell you girls one thing," said Jennie Stone, solemnly. "If I get through these examinations without having so low a mark that Miss Brokaw sends me down into the primary grade, I promise to be good for—for—well, for the rest of my life—at Briarwood!"

"Of course," Helen said. "Heavy would limit that vow to something easy."

"Perhaps she had the same grave doubt about being able to be good that the little boy felt who was saying his prayers," Belle said. "He prayed: 'Dear God, please make me a good boy—and if You don't at first succeed, try, try again!'"

"But oh! some of the problems are so hard," sighed Lluella.

"'The Mournful Sisters' will now give their famous sketch," laughed Ruth, as announcer. "Come, now! altogether, girls!"

"'Knock, knock, knock! the girls are knocking——Bring the hammers all this way!'"

"Never mind, Ruthie Fielding," complained Lluella. "We don't all of us have the luck you do. All your English made up for you in that scenario——"

"And who is this made up, I'd be glad to have somebody tell me?" interposed Jennie. "Oh, girls! tell me. Do you all see the same thing I do?"

The crowd were strolling slowly down the Cedar Walk and the individual the plump girl had spied had just come into view, walking toward them. He was a tall, lean man, "as narrow as a happy thought," Jennie muttered, and dressed in a peculiar manner.

Few visitors came to Briarwood save parents or friends of the girls. This man did not even look like a pedler. At least, he carried no sample case, and he was not walking from the direction of Lumberton.

His black suit was very dusty and his yellow shoes proved by the dust they bore, too, that he had walked a long way.

"He wears a rolling collar and a flowing tie," muttered the irrepressible Jennie. "Goodness! it almost makes me seasick to look at them. What can he be? A chaplain in the navy? An actor?"

"Actor is right," thought Ruth, as the man strutted up the walk.

The girls, who were attending Ruth and Ann and Amy Gregg a part of the way to Mrs. Sadoc Smith's, gave the strange man plenty of room on the gravel walk, but when he came near them he stopped and stared. And he stared at Ruth.

"Pardon me, young lady," he said, in a full, sonorous tone. "Are you Miss Fielding?"

The other girls drifted away and left Ruth to face the odd looking person.

"I am Ruth Fielding," Ruth said, much puzzled.

"Ah! you do not know me?" queried the man.

"No, sir."

"My card!" said the man, with a flourish.

Jennie whispered to the others: "Look at him! He draws and presents that card as though it were a sword at his enemy's throat! I hope he won't impale her upon it."

Ruth, much bewildered, and not a little troubled, accepted the card. On it was printed:

AMASA FARRINGTON Criterion Films

"Goodness!" thought Ruth. "More moving picture people?"

"I had the happiness," stated Mr. Farrington, "of being present when the censors saw the first run of your eminently successful picture, 'The Heart of a Schoolgirl,' Miss Fielding, and through a mutual friend I learned where you were to be found. I may say that from your appearance on the screen I was enabled to recognize you just now."

Ruth said nothing, but waited for him to explain. There really did not seem to be anything she could say.

"I see in that film, Miss Fielding," pursued Mr. Farrington, "the promise of better work—in time, of course, in time. You are young yet. I believe you attend this boarding school?"

"Yes," said Ruth, simply.

"From the maturity of your treatment of the scenario I fancied you might be a teacher here at Briarwood," pursued the man, smirking. "But I find you a young person—extremely young, if I may be allowed the observation, to have written a scenario of the character of 'The Heart of a Schoolgirl.'"

"I wrote it," said Ruth, for she thought the remark was a question. "I had written one before."

"Yes, yes, yes!" exclaimed Mr. Farrington. "So I understand. In fact, I have seen your 'Curiosity.' A very ingeniously thought out reel. And well acted by the Alectrion Company. Rather good acting, indeed, for them."

"I have not seen it myself," Ruth said, not knowing what the man wanted or how she ought to speak to him. "Did you wish to talk to me on any matter of importance?"

"I may say, Yes, very important—to yourself, Miss Fielding," he said, with a wide smile. "This is a most important matter. It affects your entire career as—- I may say—one of our most ingenious young writers for the screen."

Ruth stared at him in amazement. Just because she had written two moving picture scenarios she was quite sure that she was neither famous nor a genius. Mr. Amasa Farrington's enthusiasm was more amazing than his appearance.

"I am sure I do not understand you," Ruth confessed. "Is it something that you would better talk to Mrs. Tellingham about? I will introduce you to her——"

"No, no!" said Mr. Farrington, waving a black-gloved hand with the gesture Hamlet might have used in waving to his father's ghost. "The lady preceptress of your school has naught to do with this matter. It is personal with you."

"But what is it?" queried Ruth, rather exasperated now.

"Be not hasty—be not hasty, I beg," said Amasa Farrington. "I know I may surprise you. I, too, was unknown at one time, and never expected to be anything more than a traveling Indian Bitters pedler. My latent talent was developed and fostered by a kindly soul, and I come to you now, Miss Fielding, in the remembrance of my own youth and inexperience——"

"For mercy's sake!" gasped Ruth, finally. "What do you wish? I am not in need of any Indian Bitters."

"You mistake me—you mistake me," said the man, stiffly. "Amasa Farrington has long since graduated from the ranks of such sordid toilers. See my card."

"I do see your card," the impatient Ruth said, again glancing at the bit of pasteboard. "I see that you represent something called the 'Criterion Films.' What are they?"

"Ah! now you ask a pointed question, young lady," declared Mr. Farrington. "Rather you should ask, 'What will they be?' They will be the most widely advertised films ever released for the entertainment of the public. They will be written by the most famous writers of scenarios. They will be produced by the greatest directors in the business. They will be acted by our foremost Thespians."

"I—I hope you will be successful, Mr. Farrington," said Ruth, faintly, not knowing what else to say.

"We shall be—we must be—I may say that we have got to be!" ejaculated the ex-Indian Bitters pedler. "And I come to you, Miss Fielding, for your co-operation."

"Mine?" gasped Ruth.

"Yes, Miss Fielding. You are a coming writer of scenarios of a high character. We geniuses must help each other—we must keep together and refuse to further the ends of the sordid producers who would bleed us of our best work."

This was rather wild talk, and Ruth did not understand it. She said, frankly:

"Just what do you mean, Mr. Farrington? What do you want me to do?"

"Ah! Practical! I like to see you so," said the man, with a flourish, drawing forth a document of several typewritten pages. "I want you to read and sign this, Miss Fielding. It is a contract with the Criterion Films—a most liberal contract, I might say—in which you bind yourself to turn over to us your scenarios for a term of years, we, meanwhile, agreeing to push your work and make you known to the public."

"Oh, dear me!" gasped Ruth. "I'm not sure I want to be so publicly known."

"Nonsense!" cried the man, in amazement. "Why! in publicity is the breath of life. Without it, we faint—we die—we, worse—we vegetate!"

"I—I guess I don't mind vegetating—a—a little," stammered Ruth, weakly.

At that moment Mary Pease came racing down the walk. She waved a letter in her hand and was calling Ruth's name.

"Oh, Ruthie Fielding!" she called, when she saw Ruth with the man. "Here's a letter Mrs. Tellingham forgot to give you. She says it came enclosed in one from Mr. Hammond to her."

The excited girl stopped by Ruth, handed her the letter, and stared frankly at Mr. Amasa Farrington. That person's face began to redden as Ruth idly opened the unsealed missive.

Again a green slip fell out. Mary darted toward it and picked it up. She read the check loudly—excitedly—almost in a shriek!

"Goodness, gracious me, Ruthie Fielding! Is Mr. Hammond giving you this money—all this money—for your very own?"

But Ruth did not reply. She was scanning the letter from the president of the Alectrion Film Corporation. Mr. Farrington was plainly nervous.

"Come, Miss Fielding, I am waiting for your answer," he said stiffly. "If you join the Criterion Films, your success is assured. You are famous from the start——"

Ruth was just reading a clause in Mr. Hammond's kind and friendly letter:

"Don't let your head be turned by success, little girl. And I don't think it will be. You have succeeded in inventing two very original scenarios. We will hope you can do better work in time. But don't force yourself. Above all have nothing to do with agents of film people who may want you to write something that they may rush into the market for the benefit of the advertising your school play will give you."

"No, Mr. Farrington," said Ruth, kindly. "I do not want to join your forces. I am not even sure that I shall ever be able to write another scenario. Circumstances seemed really to force me to write 'The Heart of a Schoolgirl.' I am glad you think well of it. Good afternoon."

"Can you beat her?" demanded Jennie, a minute later, when the long-legged Mr. Farrington had strutted angrily away. "Ruthie is as calm as a summer lake. She can turn an offer of fame and fortune down with the greatest ease. Let's see that check, you miserable infant," she went on, grabbing the slip of paper out of Mary's hand. "Oh, girls, it's really so!"

Ruth was reading another paragraph in Mr. Hammond's letter. He said:

"The check enclosed is for you, yourself. It has nothing to do with the profits of the films we now release. It is a bribe. I want to see whatever scenarios you may write during the next two years. I want to see them first. That is all. We do not need a contract, but if you keep the check I shall know that I am to have first choice of anything you may write in this line."

The check went into Ruth's bank account.

That very week "The Heart of a Schoolgirl" was to be shown at the local Opera House. Mrs. Tellingham gave a half holiday and engaged enough stages besides Noah's old Ark, to take all the girls to the play. They went to the matinee, and the center of enthusiasm was in the seats in the body of the house reserved for the Briarwood girls.

The house was well filled at this first showing of the picture in Lumberton, and more than the girls themselves were enthusiastic over it. To Ruth's surprise the manager of the house showed "Curiosity" first, and when she saw her name emblazoned under the title of the one-reel film, Ruth Fielding had a distinct shock.

It was a joyful feeling that shook her, however. As never before she realized that she had really accomplished something in the world. She had earned money with her brains! And she had written something really worth while, too.

When the five-reel drama came on, she was as much absorbed in the story as though she had not written it and acted in it. It gave her a strange feeling indeed when she saw herself come on to the screen, and knew just what she was saying in the picture by the movement of her lips—whether she remembered the words spoken when the film was made or not.

Everything went off smoothly. The girls cheered the picture to the echo, and at the end went marching out, shouting:

"S.B.—Ah-h-h! S.B.—Ah-h-h! Sound our battle-cry Near and far! S.B.—All! Briarwood Hall! Sweetbriars, do or die— This be our battle-cry— Briarwood Hall! That's all!"



CHAPTER XXV

AUNT ALVIRAH AT BRIARWOOD HALL

Mr. Cameron, Helen's father, and Mrs. Murchiston, who had acted as governess for the twins until they were old enough to go to boarding school, were motoring to Briarwood Hall for the graduation exercises. They proposed to pick Tom up at Seven Oaks Military Academy, for he would spend another year at that school, not graduating until the following June.

They also had another guest in the big automobile who took up a deal of the attention of the drygoods merchant and Mrs. Murchiston. A two-days' trip was made of it, the party staying at a hotel for the night. Aunt Alvirah was going farther from the Red Mill and the town of Cheslow than she had ever been in her life before.

First she said she could not possibly do it! What ever would Jabez do without her? And he would not hear to it, anyway. And then—there was "her back and her bones."

"Best place for old folks like me is in the chimbly corner," declared Aunt Alvirah. "Much as I would love to see my pretty graduate with all them other gals, I don't see how I can do it. It's like uprooting a tree that's growed all its life in one spot. I'm deep-rooted at the Red Mill."

But Mr. Cameron knew it was the wish of the old woman's heart to see "her pretty" graduate from Briarwood Hall. It had been Aunt Alvirah's word that had made possible Ruth's first going to school with Helen Cameron. It was she who had urged Mr. Jabez Potter on, term after term, to give the girl the education she so craved.

Indeed, Aunt Alvirah had been the good angel of Ruth's existence at the Red Mill. Nobody in the world had so deep an interest in the young girl as the little old woman who hobbled around the Red Mill kitchen.

Therefore Mr. Cameron was determined that she should go to Briarwood. He fairly shamed Mr. Potter into hiring a woman to come in to do for Ben and himself while Aunt Alvirah was gone.

"You ought to shut up your mill altogether and go yourself, Potter," declared Mr. Cameron. "Think what your girl has done. I'm proud of my daughter. You should be doubly proud of your niece."

"Well, who says I'm not?" snarled Jabez Potter. "But I can't afford to leave my work to run about to such didoes."

"You'll be sorry some day," suggested Mr. Cameron. "But, at any rate, Aunt Alvirah shall go."

And the trip was one of wonder to Aunt Alvirah Boggs. First she was alarmed, for she confessed to a fear of automobiles. But when she felt the huge machine which carried them so swiftly over the roads running so smoothly, Aunt Alvirah became a convert to the new method of locomotion.

At the hotel where they halted for the night, there were more wonders. Aunt Alvirah's knowledge of modern conveniences was from reading only. She had never before been nearer to a telephone than to look up at the wires that were strung from post to post before the Red Mill. Modern plumbing, an elevator, heating by steam, and many other improvements, were like a sealed book to her.

She disliked to be waited upon and whispered to Mrs. Murchiston:

"That air black man a-standin' behind my chair at dinner sort o' makes me narvous. I'm expectin' of him to grab my plate away before I'm done eatin'."

The day set for the graduation exercises at Briarwood Hall was as lovely a June day as was ever seen. The Cameron automobile rolled into the grounds and was parked with several dozen machines, just as the girls were marching into chapel. The fresh young voices chanting "One Wide River to Cross" floated across to the ears of the party from the Red Mill, and Aunt Alvirah began to hum the song in her cracked, sweet treble.

The automobile party followed the smaller girls along the wide walk of the campus. There was the new West Dormitory, quite completed on the outside, and sufficiently so inside for the seniors to occupy rooms. Not the old quartettes and duos of times past; but very beautiful rooms nevertheless, in which they could later entertain their friends who had come to the graduation exercises.

The organist began to play softly on the great organ in the chapel, and played until every girl was seated—the graduating class upon the platform. Then the school orchestra played and Helen—very pretty in white with cherry ribbons—stood forth with her violin and played a solo.

Mrs. Tellingham welcomed the visitors in a short speech. Then there was a little silence before the strains of an old, old song quivered through the big chapel. Helen was playing again, with the soft tones of the organ as a background. And, in a moment Ruth stood up, stepped forward, and began to sing.

The Cheslow party had all heard her before. She was almost always singing about the old Red Mill when she was at home. But into this ballad she seemed to put more feeling than ever before. The tears ran down Aunt Alvirah's withered cheeks. Ruth did not know the dear old woman was present, for it was to be a surprise to her; but she might have been singing just for Aunt Alvirah alone.

"This pays me for coming, Miz' Murchiston, if nothin' else would," whispered Aunt Alvirah. "I can see my pretty often and often, I hope. But I'll never hear her sing again like this."

The exercises went smoothly. A learned man made a helpful speech. Then, while there was more music, a curtain fell between the graduating class and the audience.

When it rose again the girls were grouped about a light throne, trimmed with flowers, on which sat the girl who had proved herself to be the best scholar of them all—the lame girl, Mercy Curtis. She was flushed, she was excited and, if never before, Mercy Curtis looked actually pretty.

Laughing and singing, her mates rolled the throne down to the edge of the platform, and there, still sitting in her pretty, flowing white robes, Mercy gave them the valedictory oration. It was Ruth's idea, filched from the transformation scene in her moving picture scenario.

Afterward the other girls had their turns. Ruth's own paper upon "The Force of Character" and Jennie's funny "History of a Bunch of Briers" received the most applause.

Mrs. Tellingham came last. As was her custom she spoke briefly of the work of the past year and her hopes for the next one; but mainly she lingered upon the story of the rebuilding of the West Dormitory and the loyalty the girls had shown in making the new building a possibility.

There was a debt upon it yet; but the royalties from the picture play were coming in most satisfactorily. The preceptress urged all her guests to do what they could to advertise the film of "The Heart of a Schoolgirl" in their home towns, and especially urged them to see it.

"You will be well repaid. Not alone because it is a true picture of our boarding school life, but because the writer of the scenario has produced a good and helpful story, and Mr. Hammond has put it on the screen with taste and judgment."

These were Mrs. Tellingham's words, and they made Ruth Fielding very proud.

The diplomas were given out after a touching address by the local clergyman. The girls received the parchments with happy hearts. Their faces shone and their eyes were bright.

The graduating class held a sort of reception on the platform; but after a time Helen urged Ruth away from the crowd. "Come on!" she said. "Let's go up into the new-old-room. We'll not have many chances of being in it now."

"That's right. Only to-night," sighed Ruth. "Away to-morrow for the Red Mill. And next week we start for Dixie. I wonder if we shall have a good time, Helen. Do you think we ought to have promised Nettie and her aunt that we would come?"

"Surely! Why, we'll have a dandy time," declared Helen, "just us girls alone."

This belief proved true in the end, as may be learned in the next volume of this series, to be entitled "Ruth Fielding Down in Dixie; Or, Great Days in the Land of Cotton."

"I didn't see your father or Tom or Mrs. Murchiston," Ruth said, as she and Helen walked across the campus.

"They are here, just the same," said Helen, laughing.

"Where?"

"I shouldn't be surprised if we found them up in our old quartette. Ann is with her Uncle Bill Hicks, and Mercy is with her father and mother. We shall have the room to ourselves. We'll get out my new tea set and give them tea. Come on!"

Helen raced up the stairs, opened the door of the big room, and then got behind it so that Ruth, coming hurriedly in, should first see the little, quivering, eager figure which had risen out of the low chair by the window.

"My pretty! my pretty!" gasped Aunt Alvirah. "I seen you graduate, and I heard you sing, and I listened to your fine readin'. But, oh, my pretty, how hungry my arms are for ye!"

She hobbled across the floor to meet Ruth and, for once, forgot her usually intoned complaint: "Oh, my back! and oh, my bones!" Ruth caught her in her strong young arms. Helen slipped out and joined her family in the hall.

In a little while Tom thundered on the door, and shouted: "Hey! we're dying for that cup of tea Helen promised us, Ruthie Fielding. Aren't you ever going to let us in?"

Ruth's smiling face immediately appeared. Her eyes were still wet and her lips trembled as she said:

"Come in, all of you, do! We are sure to have a nice cup of tea. Aunt Alvirah is making it herself."

THE END