“And be taken for an animated scarecrow on the way?” laughed Ruth.  “Better ‘bide a wee,’ Tommy.  Sister will get here with your rompers pretty soon.  Have patience.”

“Now you talk just like Bobbins’ sister.  Behave, will you?” complained Tom.

Ruth tripped out of the room to peep at the guest, and Aunt Alvirah hobbled in and, letting herself down into her low chair, with a groan of “Oh, my back! and oh, my bones!” smiled indulgently at Tom’s gloomy face.

“What is the matter, Mister Tom?” she asked.  “Truly, you look as colicky as Amos Dodge—­an’ they do say he lived on sour apples!”

Tom had to laugh at this; but it was rather a rueful laugh.  “I don’t know what is coming over these girls—­Ruth and my sister,” he said, “They’re beginning to put on airs like grown ladies.  Cracky! they used to be some fun.”

“Growin’ up, Mister Tom—­growin’ up.  So’s my pretty.  I hate to see it, but ye can’t fool Natur’—­no, sir!  Natur’ says to these young things:  ‘Advance!’ an’ they’ve jest got to march, I reckon,” and Aunt Alvirah sighed, too.  Then her little, bird-like eyes twinkled suddenly and she chuckled.  “Jest the same,” she added, in a whisper, “Ruth got out all her doll-babies the other day and played with ’em jest like she was ten years old.”

“Ho, ho!” cried Tom, his face clearing up.  “I guess she’s only making believe to be grown up, after all!”

Helen came finally and they left Tom alone in the kitchen to change his clothes.  Then the Camerons hurried away, for it was close to supper time.  Both Helen and Tom were greatly interested in the moving picture actress; but she had fallen into a doze and they could not bid her good-bye.

“But I’m going to run down in the morning to see how she is,” Tom announced.  “I’ll see her before she goes away.  She’s a plucky one, all right!”

“Humph!” thought Ruth, when the automobile had gone, “Tom seems to have been wonderfully taken with that Miss Gray’s appearance.”

When Jabez Potter came in from the mill and found the strange girl in the best bed he was inclined to criticize.  He was a tall, dusty, old man, for whom it seemed a hard task ever to speak pleasantly.  Aunt Alvirah, when she was much put out with him, said he “croaked like a raven!”

“Gals, gals, gals!” he grumbled.  “This house seems to be nigh full of ’em when you air to home, Niece Ruth.”

“And empty enough of young life, for a fac’, when my pretty is away,” put in Aunt Alvirah.

Ruth, not minding her Uncle Jabez’s strictures, went about setting the supper table with puckered lips, whistling softly.  This last was an accomplishment she had picked up from Tom long ago.

“And whistling gals is the wust of all!” snarled Jabez Potter, from the sink, where he had just taken his face out of the soapsuds bath he always gave it before sitting down to table.  “I reckon ye ain’t forgot what I told ye: