These slate-colored clouds, edged with pallid light, foredoomed the continuance of the peaceful summer afternoon. Not a breath of air stirred on the near side of the river. The huge old elms shading the Red Mill and the farmhouse connected with it belonging to Mr. Jabez Potter, the miller, were like painted trees, so still were they. The brooding heat of midday, however, had presaged the coming storm, and it had been prepared for at mill and farmhouse. The tempest was due soon. The backyard of the farmhouse-a beautiful lawn of short grass-sloped down to the river. On the bank and over the...

Ruth Fielding's clear voice asked the question of her chum, Helen Cameron, and her chum's twin-brother, Tom. She turned from the barberry bush she had just cleared of fruit and, standing on the high bank by the roadside, gazed across the rolling fields to the Lumano River. -What people?- asked Helen, turning deliberately in the automobile seat to look in the direction indicated by Ruth. -Where? People?- joined in Tom, who was tinkering with the mechanism of the automobile and had a smudge of grease across his face. -Right over the fields yonder, - Ruth explained, carefully balancing the pail...

in the air. In the green old dooryard at the Red Mill, under the spreading shade trees, two girls are shelling a great basket of dried lima beans for the winter's store. The smaller, black-haired girl begins the conversation. -Suppose Jane Ann doesn't come, Ruth?- -You mean on this morning train?- responded the plumper and more mature-looking girl, whose frank face was particularly attractive. -Yes.- -Then Tom said he would go back to meet the evening train-and we'll go with him, - said Ruth Fielding, with a smile. -But I could not go this morning and leave poor Aunt Alvirah all these beans...

Idlers halted to wait for the appearance of the wedding party, which was about to come forth. Some of the younger spectators ran up the steps and peered in at the door, for there was only a lame, old, purblind sexton on guard, and he, too, seemed vastly interested in what was going on inside. One glance down the main aisle of the great edifice revealed a much more elaborate scheme of decoration than usually appears at a church wedding. Its main effect was the intertwining of French and American flags, and as the bridal party turned from the altar the horizon blue uniform of the...

Now she was set in a raised place and felt that before her was the company of masked and shrouded figures, in scarlet dominoes like those worn by the two guards who had brought her from the anteroom. The bandage was whisked from her eyes; but she could see nothing of her surroundings, nor of the company before which she stood. -Candidate - spoke a hollow, mysterious voice somewhere in the gloom, yet sounding so close to her ear that she started.