However, to get back to Mrs. Sadoc Smith—­Her instructions from Mrs. Tellingham included the putting out of the lamp in the big room the four Briarwood girls occupied by ten o’clock every night; but Mrs. Smith allowed Ruth to come downstairs after the other girls were in bed and write under the radiance of the reading lamp on her sitting-room table.  It was quiet there, for Mrs. Sadoc Smith either sent Curly to bed, or made him keep as still as a mouse.  And there was nobody else to disturb the young author as she wrote, save the cat that delighted to jump up into her lap and lie there purring, while the scenario was being written.

Ruth did not avail herself of this privilege often; but she was desirous for the scenario to be finished and in Mr. Hammond’s hands.  So sure had that gentleman been of her success, and so pleased was he with the plan of the entire play, that he had taken a copy of the first part with him when he left Lumberton and now wrote that Mr. Grimes was already making a few of the studio scenes.

The young author rather shrank from letting the pugnacious Mr. Grimes have anything to do with her story; but she knew that both Mr. Hammond and Hazel Gray thought highly of the man’s ability.  Nor was she in a position to insist upon any other director.  She was working for Briarwood, not for her own advantage.

“If Grimes takes hold of it with his usual vigor, it will be a success,” Mr. Hammond assured Ruth in his letter.  “Hurry along the rest of the play.  Spring is upon us, and we shall have some good open weather soon in which to take the pictures at Briarwood Hall.”

Ruth hurried.  Indeed, the story was finished so rapidly that the girl scarcely realized what she had done.  There was no time for her to go over the scenario carefully for revision and polishing.  The last scenes she read to nobody; she scarcely knew herself how they sounded.

Ruth Fielding had written an ingenious and very original scenario.  Its crudities were many and manifest; nevertheless, the true gold was there.  Mr. Hammond had recognized the originality of the girl’s ideas in the first part of the play.  He was not going into the scheme, and risking his money and reputation as a film producer, from any feeling of sentiment.  It was a business proposition, pure and simple, with him.

In the first place, nobody had ever thought of just this kind of moving picture.  The producer would be in the field with a new idea.  In addition, the drama would be looked for all over the country by the friends of the pupils, past and present, of Briarwood Hall.  The girls themselves appearing in some of the scenes would add to the interest their parents, friends, and the graduates of the Hall, were bound to take in the production.

To Ruth, nervous and overworked after the finishing of the scenario, the days of waiting until Mr. Hammond read and pronounced judgment on the play, were hard indeed to endure.  No matter how much confidence her friends—­even Mrs. Tellingham—­had in her ability to succeed, Ruth was not at all sure she had written up to the mark.