more
library last year I believe."

"It doesn't matter where it came from. I want it," cried the strange
girl, and she stepped forward quickly as though to seize the muddy vase.

But Helen sprang forward and pushed her back.

"Hold on! I guess if Ruth's got it, you'll have to wait and prove
property," said Helen. "How about it, Ruth?"

"She must tell us all about it," said Ruth, firmly. "Perhaps I may let
her have it--if she tells us the truth."

"The truth!" exclaimed Helen.

"I won't tell you a thing!" cried the strange girl. "You haven't any
right to that vase."

"Nor have you," Ruth told her.

"Well----"

"Nor has Margaret Rolff," went on Ruth, coolly. "I take it you are
acting for her, aren't you?"

"Why," cried Helen, beginning to understand. "That is the girl who left
Ardmore last year?"

"And came to the Red Mill after spending the summer at a camp on the
Lumano and helped Aunt Alvirah," Ruth added, with a smile.

"Well, I never! Not Maggie?" demanded Helen.

"I think I am right," Ruth said quietly. "Am I not?" to the other girl.
"Our Maggie is Margaret Rolff, and _you_ must be her sister. At least,
you look enough like her to be some relative."

The other made a gesture of resignation and dropped her hands. "I might
as well confess it," she admitted. "You are Ruth Fielding, and Margy
told me long ago you might be trusted."

"And this is my particular friend, Helen Cameron," Ruth said, "who is to
be fully trusted, too."

"I suppose so," said the girl. "My name is Betty. I'm Margy's younger
sister. Poor Margy. She never was very strong. I mean that she was
always giving in to other people--was easily confused.

"She's bright enough, you know," pursued the other girl, warmly; "but
she is nervous and easily put out. What those girls did to her last year
at this college was a shame!"

Another hail from behind the hill warned Ruth that she must attend Miss
Mallory's command or there would be trouble.

"We cannot wait to hear it all, Miss--Betty, did you say your name was?
Where are you staying?"

"I have been working in Greenburg all winter. We're poor girls and have
no parents. Margy is with me now," said the girl. "And I want that vase.
I want it for Margy. She will never be satisfied until she can give it
back to the dean of the college herself and explain how she came to hide
it, and then forgot where she hid the vase."

"Tell me where to find you in Greenburg," said Ruth, hastily. "No