do anything for you that Tom and I ask him to."

"I am quite sure I shall get on nicely with Uncle Jabez," she said. "And then, there is Aunt Alvirah."

"Oh, yes. There is an old lady who keeps house for Mr. Potter. And she seems kind enough, too. But she acts afraid of Mr. Potter. I don't blame her, he is so grim."

The automobile, wheeling so smoothly over the hard pike, just then was mounting a little hill. They came over the summit of this and there, lying before them, was the beautiful slope of farming country down to the very bank of the Lumano River. Fenced fields, tilled and untilled, checkered the slope, with here and there a white farmhouse with its group of outbuildings. There was no hamlet in sight, merely scattered farms. The river, swollen and yellow with the Spring rains, swept upon its bosom fence rails, hen-coops, and other flotsam of a Spring flood. Yonder, at a crossing, part of the bridge had been carried away.

"If the dam at Minturn goes, we shall be flooded all through this low land again," Helen Cameron explained. "I remember seeing this valley covered with water once during the Spring. But we live on the shoulder of Mount Burgoyne, and you see, even the mill sets on quite high ground."

Ruth's eyes had already seen and lingered upon the mill. It was a rambling structure, the great, splashing millwheel at the far end, the long warehouse in the middle, and the dwelling attached to the other end. There were barns, corn-cribs and other outbuildings as well, and some little tillable land connected with the mill; and all the buildings were vividly painted with red mineral paint, trimmed with white. So bright and sparkling was the paint that it seemed to have been put on over night.

"Mr. Potter is considered a good miller," said Helen, again; "and he does not neglect his property. He is not miserly in that way. There isn't a picket off the fence, or a hinge loose anywhere. He isn't at all what you consider a miser must be and look like; yet he is always hoarding money and never spends any. But indeed I do not tell you this to trouble you, Ruthie. I want you to believe, my dear, that if you can't stand it at Mr. Potter's you can stand it at Mr. Cameron's—and you'll be welcome there.

"Our mother is dead. We talk of her a good deal, just as though she were living and had gone on a little journey somewhere, and we should see her again soon. God took her when Tom and I were only a few weeks old; but Daddy has made himself our playfellow and dear, dear friend; and there has always been Nurse Babette and Mrs. Murchiston—at least, Mrs. Murchiston has been with us since we can remember. But what Daddy says is law, and he said this morning that he'd like to have a girl like you come to our house to be company for me. It gets lonely for me sometimes, you see, for Tom doesn't want to play with girls much, now he is so big. Perhaps next fall I'll go away to boarding school—won't that be fun?"

"It will be fun for you, I hope, Helen," said Ruth, with rather a wistful smile. "I don't know where I shall go to school."

"There is your uncle now!" exclaimed Miss Cameron. "See that man in the old dusty suit?"

Ruth had already seen the tall, stoop-shouldered figure, who looked as though he had been powdered with flour, coming down the short path from one of the open doors of the mill to the road, where a little, one horse wagon stood. He bore a bag of meal or flour on his shoulder which he pitched into the wagon. The man on the seat was speaking as the automobile came to a stop immediately behind the wagon.

"Jefers pelters! Ef there's one thing yeou know how to do, it's to take toll, Jabe. Let the flour be poor, or good, there's little enough of it comes back to the man that raises the wheat."

"You don't have to bring your wheat here, Jasper Parloe," said the miller, in a strong, harsh voice. "There is no law compels ye."

"Yah!" snarled old Parloe. "We all know ye, Jabe Potter. We know what ye be." Potter turned away. He had not noticed the two girls in the automobile. But now Jasper Parloe saw them. "Ho!" he cried, "here's somebody else that will l'arn ter know ye, too. Didn't know you was ter hev comp'ny; did ye, Jabe? Here's yer niece, Jabe, come ter live on ye an' be an expense to ye," and so, chuckling and screwing up his mean, sly face, Parloe drove on, leaving the miller standing with arms akimbo, and staring at Ruth, who was slowly alighting from the automobile with her bag.

Helen squeezed her hand tightly as she got out "Don't forget that we are your friends, Ruthie," she whispered. "I'm coming by again this afternoon when I drive over to the station for father. If—if anything happens you be out here—now remember!"

What could possibly happen to her, Ruth could not imagine. She was not really afraid of Uncle Jabez. She walked directly to him, as he stood there, staring gloomily, in front of the Red Mill. He was not only tall and stoop-shouldered, and very dusty; but his dusty eyebrows almost met over his light blue eyes. He was lantern-jawed, and it did seem as though his dry, shaven lips had never in all his life wrinkled into a smile. His throat was wrinkled and scraggy and his head was plainly very bald on top, for the miller's cap he wore did not entirely cover the bald spot.

"I am Ruth Fielding, from Darrowtown," she said, in a voice that she controlled well. "I have come to—to live with you, Uncle Jabez."

"Where was you last night?" demanded the miller, without so much as returning her greeting. "Was you with them Camerons?"

"I stayed all night with the station master," she said, in explanation.

"What time did you get to the station?"

Ruth told him. Never once did his voice change or his grim look relax.

"I mistook the time of the train," he said, without expressing any sorrow.

"I—I hope you will be glad to have me come," the said. "Miss True—"

"You mean that old maid that wrote to me?" he asked, harshly.

"Miss True Pettis. She said she thought you would like to have me here as we were so near related."

"Not so near related as some," was all he said in reply to this. After a moment, he added: "You can go along to the house yonder. Aunt Alviry will show you what to do."

Ruth could not have said another word just then without breaking down and weeping, so she only nodded and turned to walk up a path toward the house door.

"One thing," urged the old man, before she had gone far. She turned to look at him and he continued: "One thing I want you to understand, if you live here you have got to work. I don't like no laggards around me."

She could only nod again, for her heart seemed to be right in her throat, and the sting of the tears she wanted to shed, but could not, almost blinded her as she went on slowly to the house door.

CHAPTER VII

AUNT ALVIRAH'S BACK AND BONES

Ruth came to the kitchen door and found that the lower half was closed; but she could see over the upper panel that had been flung wide to let in the sweet Spring air and sunlight. A little old woman was stooping to brush the rag carpet with a whisk broom and dustpan, and as she hobbled around the big stove and around the table, which was already set neatly for dinner, she was crooning to herself:

"Oh, my back and oh, my bones! Oh, my back and oh, my bones!"

She was a very neat-looking old lady, with a kerchief crossed on her breast in the style of the old-fashioned Quakeresses. She was not much taller than Ruth herself, for when she stood upright—or as upright as she could stand—her eyes were just about on a level with Ruth's eyes looking in over the half door.

But the face of the old lady seemed, to the lonely, tear-filled girl, almost the gentlest, sweetest face she had ever seen, as it slowly smiled upon her. Aunt Alviry's welcome was like the daybreak.

"Bless us and save us!" ejaculated she, rising upright by degrees with her hand upon the back she had