He nodded, looking away from her out of the window at the fast-darkening landscape which hurried by them.
"And poor papa died last winter. I had no claim upon the kind friends who helped me when he died," pursued Ruth, bravely. "They wrote to Uncle Jabez and he—he said I could come and live with him and Aunt Alvirah Boggs."
In a flash the twinkle came back into his eyes, and he nodded again.
"Ah, yes! Aunt Alviry," he said, giving the name its old-fashioned, homely pronunciation. "I had forgotten Aunt Alviry," and he seemed quite pleased to remember her.
"She keeps house for Uncle Jabez, I understand," Ruth continued. "But she isn't my aunt."
"She is everybody's Aunt Alviry, I think," said Doctor Davison, encouragingly.
For some reason this made Ruth feel better. He spoke as though she would love Aunt Alviry, and Ruth had left so many kind friends behind her in Darrowtown that she was glad to be assured that somebody in the new home where she was going would be kind, too.
Miss True Pettis had not shown her Uncle Jabez's letter and she had feared that perhaps her mother's uncle (whom she had never seen nor known much about) might not have written as kindly for his niece to come to the Red Mill as Miss True could have wished. But Miss True was poor; most of the Darrowtown friends had been poor people. Ruth had felt that she could not remain a burden on them.
Somehow she did not have to explain all this to Doctor Davison. He seemed to understand it when he nodded and his eyes twinkled so glowingly.
"Cheslow is a pleasant town. You will like it," he said, cheerfully. "The Red Mill is five miles out on the Lake Osago Road. It is a pretty country. It will be dark when you ride over it to-night; but you will like it when you see it by daylight."