“That is not to be wondered at, of course,” Jennie Stone said, as she was about to return to her New York home.  “Everybody falls for our Ruth.  It’s a wonder to me that she has not been elected to the presidency.”

“Wait till we women get the vote,” declared Helen.  “Then we’ll send Ruth to the chair.”

“Goodness!” ejaculated Jennie.  “That sounds terrible, Nell!  One might think you mean the electric chair.”

“Is there much difference, after all, between that and the presidential chair?” Helen demanded, chuckling.  “The way some people talk about a president!”

“We are a loose-talking people,” Ruth interrupted gravely, “and I think you girls talk almost as irresponsibly as anybody I ever heard.”

“List to the stern and uncompromising Ruthie,” scoffed Jennie.  “I am glad I am going back to Aunt Kate.  She is a spinster, I admit; but she isn’t anywhere near as old-maid-like as Ruth Fielding.”

“I’ll tell Tom about that,” said Tom’s sister wickedly.

“Spinsters are the balance-wheel of the universe machinery,” declared Ruth, laughing.  “I always have admired them.  But, joking aside, at this time when the whole world should be so grateful and so much in earnest because of the end of a terrible war, trivial matters and trivial talk somehow seems to jar.”

“Not so!  Not so!” cried Helen vigorously.  “We have been holding in and trying to keep cheerful with the fear at our hearts that some loved one would suddenly be taken.  It was not lightness of heart that made people dance and act as though rattled-pated during the war.  It was an attempt to hide that awful fear in their hearts.  See how the people in Cheslow acted as though they were crazy the night of the armistice.  And did you read what the papers said about the times in New York?  It was only a natural outbreak.”

“Well,” remarked.  Ruth, shrugging her shoulders, “you certainly have got off the subject of old maids—­bless ’em!  Give my love to your Aunt Kate, Jennie, and when we come to the city to take the shots for this picture, I’ll surely see her.”

“Hi!” cried Miss Stone energetically.  “I guess you will!  You’ll come right to the house and stay with us during that time!”

“Oh, no.  I shall have Wonota with me.  We will stay at a hotel.  Our hours are always so uncertain when we shoot a picture that I could not undertake to be at any private house.”

There was some discussion over this.  Ruth did not intend to let Wonota out of her sight much while the picture was being made.  Nor did she propose to let the script of the picture out of her sight until copies could be made of it, and the continuity man had made his version for the director.  Ruth was not going to run the risk of losing another scenario, as she had once while Down East.

Ruth put in two weeks’ hard work on the new story.  As she laughingly said, she ate, slept, and talked movies all the time.  Wonota had to amuse herself; but that did not seem hard for the Indian girl to do.  She was naturally of a very quiet disposition.  She sat by Aunt Alvirah for hours doing beadwork while the old woman darned or knitted.