declared Ruth. "We're taking you to the Red Mill. Now! no objections,
please. Hurry up, Tommy."

"But I am all wet," protested the girl.

"I should say you were," gasped Helen.

"Nobody knows better than I," said Ruth, "that the water of the Lumano
river is at least _damp_, at all seasons."

"I will make you a lot of trouble," objected Miss Gray.

"No, you won't," the girl of the Red Mill repeated. "Aunt Alvirah will
snuggle you down between soft, fluffy blankets, and give you hot boneset
tea, or 'composition,' and otherwise coddle you. To-morrow morning you
will feel like a new girl."

"Oh, dear!" groaned Miss Gray. "I wish I _were_ a new girl."

A very few minutes later they came in sight of the Red Mill, with the
rambling, old, story-and-a-half dwelling beside it, in which Jabez
Potter's grandfather had been born. Although the leaves had long since
fallen from the trees, and the lawn was brown, the sloping front yard of
the Potter house was very attractive. The walks were swept, the last dead
leaf removed, and the big stones at the main gateway were dazzlingly
white-washed.

The jar and rumble of the grist-mill, and the trickle of the water on the
wheel, made a murmurous accompaniment to all the other sounds of life
about the place. From the rear of the old house fowls cackled, a mule sent