“Here we are, wife!” he exclaimed, cheerfully.  “And how’s Mercy?”

The reiterated declaration had stopped instantly.  A comely, kind-faced woman with snow-white hair, came forward.  Ruth saw that she was some years younger than Curtis, and he was not yet forty.  It was not Father Time that had powdered Mrs. Curtis’ head so thickly.

“Mercy is—­ Why, who’s this?” she asked espying Ruth.  “One of the girls come in to see her?”

Instantly the same whining, shrill voice began: 

“I don’t want her to see me!  They come to stare at me!  I hate ’em all!  All girls do is to run and jump and play tag and ring-around-a-rosy and run errands, and dance!  I hate ’em!”

This was said very, very fast—­ almost chattered; and it sounded so ill-natured, so impatient, so altogether mean and hateful, that Ruth fell back a step, almost afraid to enter the pleasant room.  But then she saw the white-haired lady’s face, and it was so grieved, yet looked such a warm welcome to her, that she took heart and stepped farther in, so that Sam Curtis could shut the door,

The father appeared to pay no attention to the fault-finding, shrill declamation of the unhappy voice.  He said, in explanation, to his wife: 

“This is Ruth Fielding.  She has come a long. way by train to-day, expecting to meet her uncle, old Jabe Potter of the Red Mill.  And you know how funny Jabe is, wife?  He came before the train, and did not wait, but drove right away with his mules and so there was nobody here to meet Ruthie.  She’s marooned here till the morning, you see.”

“Then she shall stay with us to-night,” declared Mrs. Curtis, quickly.

“I don’t want her to stay here to-night!” ejaculated the same shrill voice.

Mr. and Mrs. Curtis paid no attention to what was said by this mysterious third party.  Ruth, coming farther into the room, found that it was large and pleasant.  There was a comfortable look about it all.  The supper table was set and the door was opened into the warm kitchen, from which delicious odors of tea and toast with some warm dish of meat, were wafted in.  But the shrill and complaining voice had not come from the next room.

In the other corner beside the stove, yet not too near it, stood a small canopy bed with the pretty chintz curtains drawn all about it.  Beside it stood a wheel-chair such as Ruth knew was used by invalids who could not walk.  It was a tiny chair, too, and it and the small bed went together.  But of the occupant of either she saw not a sign.

“Supper will be ready just as soon as our guest has a chance to remove the traces of travel, Sam,” said Mrs. Curtis, briskly.  “Come with me, Ruth.”

When they returned from the pleasant little bed-chamber which the good-hearted lady told Ruth was to be her own for that night, they heard voices in the sitting room—­ the voice of Mr. Curtis and the querulous one.  But it was not so sharp and strained as it seemed before.  However, on opening the door, Mr. Curtis was revealed sitting alone and there was no sign of the owner of the sharp voice, which Ruth supposed must belong to the invalid.