Here the strange girl interposed. She had been darting quick, shrewd glances about the hall at the girls and boys there gathered, and now she said:
“Ye don’t hafter do nothing for me. A little rainwater won’t hurt me—I ain’t neither sugar nor salt. All I wants to know is where them fresh air kids is stayin’. I ain’t afraid of the rain—it’s the thunder and lightning that scares me.”
“Goodness knows,” laughed Madge, “I guess the water wouldn’t hurt you. But we’ll fix you up a little better, I guess.”
“Let Ruth do it,” said Mrs. Steele, sharply. “She says she knows the girl.”
“She’s a friend of mine,” said the girl of the Red Mill, frankly. “You surely remember me, Sadie Raby?”
“Oh, I remember ye, Miss,” returned the runaway. “You was kind to me, too.”
“Come on, then,” said Ruth, briskly. “I’m only going to be kind to you again—and so is Mrs. Steele going to be kind. Come on!”
An hour later an entirely different looking girl appeared with Ruth in the big room at the top of the house which the visiting girls occupied. Some of them had come upstairs, for the tempest was over now, and were making ready for dinner by slow stages, it still being some time off, and there was nothing else to do.
“This is Sadie Raby, girls,” explained Ruth, quietly. “She is the sister of those cute little twins that are staying at the Caslons’ place. She has had a hard time getting here, and because she hasn’t seen Willie and Dickie for eight months, or more, she is very anxious to see them. They are all she has in the world.”
“And I reckon they’re a handful,” laughed Heavy. “Come on! tell us all about it, Sadie.”