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196 "What she means by forcing herself on this party at Tintacker, gets my time!" exclaimed Jane Ann.

"Sally will make her walk a chalk line if she goes over there with her," laughed Helen. "Think of her and Ike getting married without a word to anybody!"

Jane Ann laughed, too, at that. "Sally whispered to me that she never would have taken Ike so quick if it hadn't been for what we did at the party the other night. She was afraid some of the other girls around here would see what a good fellow Ike was and want to marry him. She's always intended to take him some time, she said; but it was Ruth that settled the affair at that time."

"I declare! Ruth does influence a whole lot of folk, doesn't she?" murmured Heavy. "I never saw such a girl."

And that last was the comment Dr. Burgess made regarding the girl of the Red Mill after the party arrived at Tintacker. They reached the mine just at daybreak the next morning. Mary Cox had kept them back some, for she was not a good rider. But she had cried and taken on so when Sally and Ike did not want her to go farther than the river, that they were really forced to allow her to continue the entire journey.

Dr. Burgess examined the sick man and pro-