“Mercy has had her supper; hasn’t she, wife?” said the station master as he drew his chair to the table and motioned Ruth to the extra place Mrs. Curtis had set.

The woman nodded and went briskly about putting the supper on the table.  While they ate Mr. Curtis told about Reno stopping the train, and of the search for and recovery of the injured Cameron boy.  All the time Ruth, who sat sideways to the canopied bed, realized that the curtains at the foot were drawn apart just a crack and that two very bright, pin-point eyes were watching her.  So interested did these eyes become as the story progressed, and Ruth answered questions, that more of Mercy Curtis’ face was revealed—­ a sharp, worn little face, with a peaked chin and pale, thin cheeks.

Ruth was very tired when supper was ended and the kind Mrs. Curtis suggested that she go to bed and obtain a good night’s rest if she was to walk to the Red Mill in the morning.  But even when she bade her entertainers good-night she did not see the child in the canopy bed and she felt diffident about asking Mrs. Curtis about her.  The young traveler slept soundly—­ almost from the moment her head touched the pillow.  Yet her last thought was of Uncle Jabez.  He had been in town some time before the train on which she arrived was due and had driven away from the station with his mules, Mr. Curtis said.  Had he driven over that dark and dangerous road on which Tom Cameron met with his accident, and had he run down the injured boy, or forced him over the bank of the deep gully where they had found Tom lying unconscious?

“It was Jabe Potter—­ he did it,” the injured lad had murmured, and these words were woven in the pattern of Ruth’s dreams all night.

The little cottage was astir early and Ruth was no laggard.  She came down to breakfast while the sun was just peeping above the house-tops and as she entered the sitting room she found an occupant at last in the little wheel-chair.  It was the sharp, pale little face that confronted her above the warm wrapper and the rug that covered the lower part of the child’s body; for child Mercy Curtis was, and little older than Ruth herself, although her face seemed so old.

To Ruth’s surprise the first greeting of the invalid was a most ill-natured one.  She made a very unpleasant face at the visitor, ran out her tongue, and then said, in her shrill, discordant voice: 

“I don’t like you at all—­ I tell you that, Miss!”

“I am sorry you do not like me,” replied Ruth, gently.  “I think I should like you if you’d let me.”

“Yah!” ejaculated the very unpleasant, but much to be pitied invalid.

The mother and father ignored all this ill-nature on the part of the lame girl and were as kind and friendly with their visitor as they had been on the previous evening.  Once during breakfast time (Mercy took hers from a tray that was fastened to her chair before her) the child burst out again, speaking to Ruth.  There were eggs on the table and, pointing to the golden-brown fried egg that Mrs. Curtis had just placed upon Ruth’s plate, Mercy snapped: