“So, one thing led to another,” pursued Aunt Alvirah, “and I got him to let me keep her to help rid the house up. You know, you wrote me to wait till you come home for house-cleanin’. But I worked Jabez Potter right; I know how to manage him,” said she, nodding and smiling.
“And you didn’t know who the girl was?” asked Ruth, still curious. “Nothing about her at all?”
“Not much. She was short-tongued, I tell ye. But I gathered she had been an orphan a long time and had lived at an institution.”
“Not even her name?” asked Ruth, at last.
“Oh, yes. She told her name—and it was her true one, I reckon,” Aunt Alviry said. “It was Sadie Raby.”
CHAPTER VI—SEEKING THE TRAIL
“I might have known that! I might have known it!” Ruth exclaimed when she heard this. “And if I’d only written you or Uncle Jabez about her, maybe you would have kept her till I came. I wanted to help that girl,” and Ruth all but shed tears.
“Deary, deary me!” cried Aunt Alvirah. “Tell me all about it, my pretty.”
So Ruth related all she knew about the half-wild girl whose acquaintance she had made at Briarwood Hall under such peculiar circumstances. And she told just how Sadie looked and all about her.
“Yes,” agreed Aunt Alvirah. “That was the trampin’ gal sure enough. She was honest, jest as you say. But your uncle had his doubts. However, she looked better when she went away from here.”