Indeed, Aunt Alvirah had been the good angel of Ruth's existence at the Red Mill. Nobody in the world had so deep an interest in the young girl as the little old woman who hobbled around the Red Mill kitchen.
Therefore Mr. Cameron was determined that she should go to Briarwood. He fairly shamed Mr. Potter into hiring a woman to come in to do for Ben and himself while Aunt Alvirah was gone.
"You ought to shut up your mill altogether and go yourself, Potter," declared Mr. Cameron. "Think what your girl has done. I'm proud of my daughter. You should be doubly proud of your niece."
"Well, who says I'm not?" snarled Jabez Potter. "But I can't afford to leave my work to run about to such didoes."
"You'll be sorry some day," suggested Mr. Cameron. "But, at any rate, Aunt Alvirah shall go."
And the trip was one of wonder to Aunt Alvirah Boggs. First she was alarmed, for she confessed to a fear of automobiles. But when she felt the huge machine which carried them so swiftly over the roads running so smoothly, Aunt Alvirah became a convert to the new method of locomotion.
At the hotel where they halted for the night, there were more wonders. Aunt Alvirah's knowledge of modern conveniences was from reading only. She had never before been nearer to a telephone than to look up at the wires that were strung from post to post before the Red Mill. Modern plumbing, an elevator, heating by steam, and many other improvements, were like a sealed book to her.
She disliked to be waited upon and whispered to Mrs. Murchiston:
"That air black man a-standin' behind my chair at dinner sort o' makes me narvous. I'm expectin' of him to grab my plate away before I'm done eatin'."
The day set for the graduation exercises at Briarwood Hall was as lovely a June day as was ever seen. The Cameron automobile rolled into the grounds and was parked with several dozen machines, just as the girls were marching into chapel. The fresh young voices chanting "One Wide River to Cross" floated across to the ears of the party from the Red Mill, and Aunt Alvirah began to hum the song in her cracked, sweet treble.