As she started up the stairs, Ruth turned to Arthur who was slowly following. "I really do believe you saved my life," she said earnestly. "I was so frightened and tired and achy that I couldn't have gone many more steps if that blessed old voice hadn't led me."
"Oh, some one would have found you before long," answered Arthur, who hated to take any undeserved credit to himself.
"Perhaps," assented Ruth doubtfully. "At any rate it would have been a trifle cold sitting there waiting to be found, and I prefer to think you saved my life. It makes me feel much more important."
"Ail right, we'll call it so then," said Arthur with a laugh. "And now we're square again, as we were on the night when we first ate dinner together, for if I saved your life you have certainly saved my common sense."
"I must say I like it to hear you compare your common sense with my life. However, I'll shake hands on it," and with a laughing good-night Ruth followed Mrs. Hamilton into the pink room.
Arthur thumped along into his own room and went happily to bed, feeling that girls were pluckier that he had thought them, and that even crutch-bearers could accomplish something in the world.
CHAPTER XIII
MISS CYNTHIA
"Come down to the pond with me this afternoon," said Dorothy as she and Ruth parted on their way home from school a few days after the skating-party, "and we'll go into a quiet comer and practice until you feel sure of yourself."
"All right; I'll go," Ruth answered, "but I can't stay long; I must study for at least an hour before dinner."