seen recently. The
feeling, however, that she knew the person grew.

The snow blew sharply into the faces of the skating girls; but she on
shore was somewhat sheltered from the gale. The wind was out of the
north and west and the highland of the island broke the zest of the gale
for the strange girl.

"And yet she isn't strange--I _know_ she isn't," murmured Ruth Fielding,
casting another glance back at the figure on the shore.

"Come on, Ruth! _Do_ hurry!" cried Helen, looking back. "Even Heavy is
beating you."

Ruth quickened her efforts. The strange girl disappeared, mounting a
path it seemed toward the center of the island. Ruth, head bent and lips
tightly closed, skated on intent upon her mystifying thoughts.

The trio rounded the island at last. They got the wind somewhat at their
backs and on a long slant made for the boathouse landing. It was growing
dusk, but there was a fire at the landing that beckoned them on.

"Glad it isn't any farther," Helen panted. "This snow is gathering so
fast it clogs one's skates."

"Oh, I must be losing pounds!" puffed Jennie Stone. "I bet none of my
clothes will fit me to-morrow. I shall have to throw them all away."

"Oh, Heavy!" giggled Helen. "That lovely new silk?"

"Oh--well--I shall take _that_ in!" drawled Jennie.

"I've got it!" exclaimed Ruth, in a most startling way.

"Goodness me! are you hurt?" demanded Helen.

"What you got? A cramp?" asked Jennie, quite as solicitous.

"I know now who that girl looked like," declared Ruth.

"What girl?" rejoined Helen Cameron. "The one over yonder, on the other
side of the island?"

"Yes. She looks just like that Maggie who came to the mill, Helen. You
remember, don't you? The girl I left to help Aunt Alvirah when I came to
college."

"Well, for the land's sake!" said Jennie Stone. "If she's up there at
the Red Mill, how can she possibly be down here, too? You're talking out
of order, Miss Fielding. Sit down!"

CHAPTER XIV

"OFT IN THE STILLY NIGHT"

Ruth Fielding could not get that surprising, that almost unbelievable,
discovery out of her mind.

It seemed ridiculous to think that girl could be Maggie, "the waif," she
had seen on Bliss Island. Aunt Alvirah had written Ruth a letter only a
few days before and in it she said that Maggie was very helpful and
seemed wholly content.

"Only," the little old housekeeper at the Red Mill wrote, "I don't know
a mite more about the child now than I did when