. Until they drew Tom and his fainting burden
ashore, neither Ruth nor Helen had time for criticism. Then they bundled
Hazel Gray in the automobile rugs, while Tom struggled into an overcoat
and cranked up the machine. The director came to inquire:

"What are you going to do with that girl?"

"Take her to the Red Mill," snapped Ruth. "That's down the river, opposite
the road to Cheslow. And don't try to see her before to-morrow. No thanks
to _you_ that she isn't drowned."

"You are a very impudent young lady," growled the director.

"I may be a plain spoken one," said Ruth, not at all alarmed by the man's
manner. "I don't know how you would have felt had Miss Gray been drowned.
I should think you would think of _that_!"

But the man seemed more disturbed about the delay to the picture that was
being taken.

"I shall expect you to be ready bright and early in the morning, Miss
Gray!" he shouted as the automobile moved off. The young actress, half
fainting in the tonneau between the Briarwood Hall girls, did not hear
him.

It was several miles to the Red Mill, and Ruth, worried, said: "I'm afraid
Tom will catch cold, Helen."

"And--and this po--poor girl, too," stammered Tom's sister, as the car
jounced over a particularly rough piece of road.

Hazel Gray opened her eyes languidly, murmuring: "I shall be all right,
thank you! Just drive to the hotel----"

"What hotel?" asked Ruth, laughing.

"In Cheslow. I don't know the name of it," whispered Hazel Gray. "Is there
more than one?"

"There is; but you'll not go all the way to Cheslow in your condition,"
declared Ruth. "We're taking you to the Red Mill. Now! no objections,
please. Hurry up, Tommy."

"But I am all wet," protested the girl.

"I should say you were," gasped Helen.

"Nobody knows better than I," said Ruth, "that the water of the Lumano
river is at least _damp_, at all seasons."

"I will make you a lot of trouble," objected Miss Gray.

"No, you won't," the girl of the Red Mill repeated. "Aunt Alvirah will
snuggle you down between soft, fluffy blankets, and give you hot boneset
tea, or 'composition,' and otherwise coddle you. To-morrow morning you
will feel like a new girl."

"Oh, dear!" groaned Miss Gray. "I wish I _were_ a new girl."

A very few minutes later they came in sight of the Red Mill, with the
rambling, old, story-and-a-half dwelling beside it, in which Jabez
Potter's grandfather had been born. Although the leaves had long sinc