now that there is no reason why you shouldn't have another term or two at school—if you want to go."
"Want to go to Briarwood! Oh, Uncle!" gasped Ruth.
"Then I take it you do want to go?"
"More than anything else in the world!" declared his niece, reverently.
"Wall, Niece Ruth," he concluded, with his usual manner. "If your Aunt Alviry can spare ye"
"Don't think about me, Jabez, don't think about me," cried the little old woman. "Just what my pretty wants—that will please her Aunt Alviry."
Ruth ran and seized the hard hand of the miller before he could get out of the kitchen. "Oh, Uncle!" she cried, kissing his hand. "You are good to me!"
"Nonsense, child!" he returned, roughly, and went out.
Ruth turned to the little old woman, down whose face the tears were coursing unreproved.
"And you, too, Auntie! You are too good to me! Everybody is too good to me! Look at the Camerons! and Jennie Stone! and all the rest. And Mary Cox just hugged me tight when we came away and said she loved me—that I had saved her brother's life. And Mr. Bill Hicks—
