! I'll
not let you have the vase now. I will not show it to anybody else,
however, and we'll come over to town this evening and bring it with us,
and talk with Maggie."

"Oh, Miss Fielding----"

"That must satisfy you," said Ruth, firmly; and Betty Rolff had to be
satisfied with this promise. She told the chums where she and Margaret
were staying and then Ruth and Helen ran back to their friends, Ruth
concealing the hastily wiped silver vase under the loose front of her
blouse.

"Goodness!" she said to Helen, "I hope nobody will see it. Do I bulge
_much_?"

There was so much excitement among the crew of the freshman eight,
however, that Ruth's treasure-trove was not discovered. Under Miss
Mallory's direction they launched the shell again, climbed aboard, and
made a safe passage to the dock.

A notice was put up that very evening, however, to the effect that none
of the racing shells were to be taken out unless the launch was manned
and went with the frailer craft.

The students of Ardmore were allowed to leave the college grounds in the
evening if they were properly chaperoned. And when Ruth went to Miss
Cullam and explained a little of what was afoot, the mathematics
instructor was only too glad to act in the capacity of chaperon.

Helen had telephoned for a car, and the three rode down to Greenburg
immediately after dinner. Ruth carried the recovered vase, just as she
had dug it out of the hole by the Stone Face on Bliss Island, wrapped in
a paper. She had not had time either to clean it or to examine it more
thoroughly.

They easily found the boarding house, the address of which Betty Rolff
had given to Ruth. It was a respectable place, but was far from
sumptuous. It was evident, as Ruth had been previously informed, that
the Rolff girls were not very well off in this world's goods.

When the visitors climbed to the second floor bedroom where the sisters
were lodged, Miss Cullam took the lead, walked straight in, seized
Margaret Rolff in her arms and implanted a kiss upon the pale cheek of
the girl who had for so many months been Aunt Alvirah's assistant at the
Red Mill.

"You poor girl!" said the mathematics teacher. "What you must have been
through! Now, I am delighted to see you again, and you must tell me all
about it--how you came to take the vase, and bury it, and all."

There was a good deal of talk on both sides before all this that Miss
Cullam asked was explained. But the facts were made clear