“I don’t suppose he did have to,” Ruth said, slowly.  “And it wasn’t as though I couldn’t have remained in Darrowtown.  But Miss True Pettis—­”

“Miss True?” repeated Helen, curiously.

“Short for Truthful.  Her name is Rechelsea Truthful Tomlinson Pettis and she is the dearest little old spinster lady—­ much nicer than her name.”

“Well!” ejaculated the amazed Helen.

“Miss True isn’t rich.  Indeed, she is very poor.  So are Patsy Hope’s folks—­ Patsy is really Patricia, but that’s too long for her.  And all the other folks that knew me about Darrowtown had a hard time to get along, and most of them had plenty of children without taking another that wasn’t any kin to them,” concluded Ruth, who was worldly wise in some things, and had seen the harder side of life since she had opened her eyes upon this world.

“But your uncle is said to be a regular miser,” declared Helen, earnestly.  “And he is so gruff and grim!  Didn’t your friends know him?”

“I guess they never saw him, or heard much about him,” said Ruth, slowly.  “I’m sure I never did myself.”

“But don’t you be afraid,” said the other, warmly.  “If he isn’t good to you there are friends enough here to look out for you.  I know Doctor Davison thinks you are very brave, and Daddy will do anything for you that Tom and I ask him to.”

“I am quite sure I shall get on nicely with Uncle Jabez,” she said.  “And then, there is Aunt Alvirah.”

“Oh, yes.  There is an old lady who keeps house for Mr. Potter.  And she seems kind enough, too.  But she acts afraid of Mr. Potter.  I don’t blame her, he is so grim.”

The automobile, wheeling so smoothly over the hard pike, just then was mounting a little hill.  They came over the summit of this and there, lying before them, was the beautiful slope of farming country down to the very bank of the Lumano River.  Fenced fields, tilled and untilled, checkered the slope, with here and there a white farmhouse with its group of outbuildings.  There was no hamlet in sight, merely scattered farms.  The river, swollen and yellow with the Spring rains, swept upon its bosom fence rails, hen-coops, and other flotsam of a Spring flood.  Yonder, at a crossing, part of the bridge had been carried away.

“If the dam at Minturn goes, we shall be flooded all through this low land again,” Helen Cameron explained.  “I remember seeing this valley covered with water once during the Spring.  But we live on the shoulder of Mount Burgoyne, and you see, even the mill sets on quite high ground.”

Ruth’s eyes had already seen and lingered upon the mill.  It was a rambling structure, the great, splashing millwheel at the far end, the long warehouse in the middle, and the dwelling attached to the other end.  There were barns, corn-cribs and other outbuildings as well, and some little tillable land connected with the mill; and all the buildings were vividly painted with red mineral paint, trimmed with white.  So bright and sparkling was the paint that it seemed to have been put on over night.