She identified the trio striding up the roadway, distant as they were. Ruth, her cheeks rosy, her hair flying, came on ahead, while the black-haired and black-eyed twins, Helen and Tom Cameron, walked hand-in-hand behind her. This was their final outing together in the vicinity of the Red Mill for many months. Helen and Tom were always very close companions, and although they had already been separated during school terms, Tom had run over from Seven Oaks to see his sister at Briarwood for almost every week-end.
"No more of 'sich doin's now, old man," Helen said to him, smiling rather tremulously. "And even when you get to Harvard next year, you will not be allowed often at Ardmore. They say there is a sign 'No Boys Allowed' stuck up beside every 'Keep Off the Grass' sign on the Ardmore lawns."
"Nonsense!" laughed Tom.
"Oh, I only repeat what I've been told."
"Well, Sis, you won't be entirely alone," Tom said kindly. "Ruth will be with you. You and she will have your usual good times."
"Of course. But you'll be awfully lonely, Tommy."
"True enough," agreed Tom.
Then Ruth's gay voice hailed them from the porch upon which she had mounted yards ahead of them.
"Come on, slow-pokes. Aunt Alvirah has put on the tea. I smell it!"
Ruth Fielding did not possess her chum's measure of beauty. Helen was a dainty, compelling brunette with flashing eyes—eyes she had already learned to use to the undoing of what Ruth called "the youthful male of the species."