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