fty dollars on the very day they had been wrecked on
the Lumano. No wonder he had been so cross all this time!

It was Uncle Jabez's way. As Aunt Alvirah said, he could not help it. At
least, he had never learned to make any effort to cure this unfortunate
niggardliness that made him seem so unkind.

"I do wish I had a lot of money," she told Aunt Alvirah, with a sigh. "I
would never have to ask him to pay out a cent again. I could refuse to
take this that he has given me and then I----"

"Tut, tut, my pretty! don't say that," said the little old woman,
soothingly. "It does him good to put his hand in his pocket--it does,
indeed. If it is a sad wrench for him ter git it out ag'in--all the
better!" and she chuckled a little as she lowered herself into her
rocker. "Oh, my back! and oh, my bones!"

"Ye don't understand yer uncle's nater like I do, Ruthie. You bein' his
charge has been the salvation of him--yes, it has! Don't worry when he
gives ye money; it's all thet keeps his old heart from freezin' right up
solid."

Now the Cameron automobile was at the gate, and Helen and Tom were
calling to Ruth to hurry. Ben had taken her trunk to the Cheslow station
the day before. Ruth appeared with her new handbag (the Gypsies had the
old one), flung her arms about Aunt Alvirah's neck as she sat on the
porch, and then ran swiftly to the door of the mill.

"Uncle! I'm going!" she called into the brown dusk of the place.

He came slowly to the door. His gray, grim face was unlighted by even an
attempt at a smile, as he shook hands with her.

"I know ye'll be a good gal," he said, sourly. "Ye allus be. But be
savin' with--with all thet money I gave ye. It's enough to be the
ruination of a young gal to hev so much."

He repented of his gift, she knew. Yet she remembered what Aunt Alvirah
had said, and refrained from handing it back to him. She determined,
however, if she could, to never touch the five gold pieces, and some
time, when she was self-supporting, she would hand the very same coins
back to him!

This was in her thought as she moved away. So, on this occasion, Ruth
Fielding did not leave the Red Mill with a very happy feeling at her
heart.

The automobile sped away along the shady road into Cheslow. At the
station Mercy Curtis, the lame girl, was awaiting them, although it was
still some time before the train was due that would bear them away to
Lake Osago.

When it _did_ steam into view and come to a slow sto