“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 splendid gymnasium scene pleased the girls, and views of the hand-ball, captain’s-ball, tennis and basket-ball courts, with the girls in action, were bound to be spectacular, too.

These typical boarding school scenes closely followed the text of Ruth’s play.  Hazel and Ruth were in them all; and on the tennis court Hazel and Ruth played Helen and Sarah Fish a fast game, the former couple winning by sheer skill and pluck.

Ruth naturally had to neglect some duties.  Discipline was more or less relaxed, and she lost sight of Amy Gregg.

One evening the smaller girl did not appear at Mrs. Sadoc Smith’s after supper.  Of late the other girls had let Amy Gregg alone and Ruth had ceased to watch her so carefully.  But when darkness fell and Amy did not appear, Ruth telephoned to the school.  Miss Scrimp, who answered the call, had not seen her.  It was learned, too, that Amy had not been at the supper table.  Nobody had seen her depart, but it was a fact that she had disappeared from Briarwood Hall sometime during the afternoon.  Nor had she been near Mrs. Sadoc Smith’s since early morning.

CHAPTER XX

A CLOUD ARISES

While Mrs. Smith and Helen and Ann Hicks were “running around in circles,” as Ann put it, wondering what had become of Amy Gregg, Ruth did the only practical thing she could think of.