Then the sisters coaxed her to let them give her a cup of tea and perhaps a fried egg and a bit of bacon. But Ruth protested that she was not in the least hungry and only needed a short rest before she would be perfectly fit and able to start back to her friends.
“If you will show me the way,” she added, with her bright friendly smile.
“Indeed we will. Although we would like so much to keep you with us.” The younger of the two girls said this with a wistful tone and look. It was pathetic, too, Ruth thought, to see how the younger of the two girls leaned upon the strength and courage of the elder.
She was about to ask the sisters as tactfully as she could how it happened that they were alone in this remote place when the older girl forestalled her by asking a question of her own.
“If you don’t mind telling me,” she said gravely, “I’d like to know what happened to you before I came along and helped you out of that hole.”
“I fell into another hole!” said Ruth.
The sisters were mystified at that, and so Ruth explained the harrowing circumstances that preceded the fortunate discovery of her plight by this new friend.
The older girl listened with grave interest, while the younger interrupted often with eager questions.
The latter would have kept Ruth talking of her own affairs indefinitely, had not the young director adroitly switched the conversation to a subject which had aroused her curiosity.
“I don’t want to appear to pry,” she said, with her pleasant smile. “But I do feel that I owe a debt of gratitude to the young lady who helped me out of a very bad scrape indeed. And how am I going to express my gratitude,” she added gayly, “when I don’t even know the young lady’s name?”