It seemed a week—yes! a month—since she had left the Red Mill that morning. She again went over the pleasant road with the Camerons and Mrs. Murchiston to Cheslow. She remembered their conversation with good Dr. Davison, and wondered if by any possibility the time would come when poor Mercy Curtis could go to school—perhaps come to this very Briarwood Hall.

The long ride on the train to Lake Osago was likewise repeated in Ruth's mind; then the trip by boat to Portageton. She could not fail to recount the mysterious behavior of the big man who played the harp in the boat orchestra, and Mademoiselle Picolet. And while these thoughts were following in slow procession through her mind she suddenly became aware of a sound without. The nearest window was open—the lower sash raised to its full height. It was a warm and windless night.

The sound was repeated. Ruth raised her head from the pillow. It was a faint scratching—at the door, or at the window? She could not tell.

Ruth lay down again; then she sat upright in her bed as the sound continued. Every other noise about the house now seemed stilled. The dog did not bark. There was no rustle in the trees that shaded the campus. Where was that sound? At the door?

Ruth was not afraid—only curious. If somebody was trying to attract her attention—if somebody wished to communicate with her, to get into the room——

She hopped out of bed. Helen still slept as calmly as though she was in her own bed at home. Ruth went softly to the door. She had latched it when they came in. Now she pushed the bolt back softly. Was there a rustle and a soft whisper behind the panels?

Suddenly, as the fastening was removed, the door was pushed inward. Ruth stepped back. Had she been of a very nervous disposition, she would have cried aloud in fright, for two figures all in white stood at the door.

"Hush!" commanded the taller of the two shrouded figures. "Not a word."

Thus commanded, and half frightened, as well as wholly amazed, Ruth remained passive. The two white figures entered; two more followed; two more followed in turn, until there were eight couples—girls and all shrouded in sheets, with pillow-case hoods over their heads, in which were cut small "eyes"—within the duet room. Somebody closed the door. Somebody else motioned Ruth to awaken Helen.

Ruth hesitated. She at once supposed that some of their school-fellows meant to haze them; but she did not know how her chum would take such a startling awakening from sound sleep. She knew that, had she been asleep herself and opened her eyes to see these shrouded figures gathered about her bed, she would have been frightened beyond expression.

"Don't let her see you first!" gasped Ruth, affrightedly.

Instantly two of the girls seized her and, as she involuntarily opened her lips to scream, one thrust a ball of clean rags into her mouth, thrusting it in so far that it effectually gagged her, nor could she expel the ball from her mouth. It was not a cruel act, but it was awfully uncomfortable, and being held firmly by her two assailants, Ruth could do nothing, either in her own behalf, or for Helen.

But she was determined not to cry. These big girls called them "Infants," and Ruth Fielding determined not to deserve the name. She had no idea that the hazing party would really hurt them; they would have for their principal object the frightening of the new-comers to Briarwood Hall; and, secondarily, they would try to make Ruth and Helen appear just as ridiculous as possible.

Ruth was sorry in a moment that she had breathed a syllable aloud; for she was not allowed to awaken Helen. Instead, a girl went to either side of the bed and leaned over Ruth's sleeping chum. The tall, peaked caps made of the pillow-cases looked awful enough, and Ruth was in a really unhappy state of mind. All for Helen's sake, too. She had opened the door to these thoughtless girls. If she only had not done it!

Suddenly Helen started upright in bed. Her black eyes glared for a moment as she beheld the row of sheeted figures. But her lips only opened to emit a single "Oh!"

"Silence!" commanded one of the figures leaning over the bed, and Ruth, whose ears were sharpened now, believed that she recognized Mary Cox's voice. She immediately decided that these girls who had come to haze them were the very Juniors who had been so nice to them that evening—"The Fox" and her fellow-members of the Upedes. But Ruth was more interested just then in the manner in which Helen was going to take her sudden awakening.

Fortunately her chum seemed quite prepared for the visitation. After her first involuntary cry, she remained silent, and she even smiled across the footboard at Ruth, who, gagged and held captive, was certainly in no pleasant situation. The thought flashed into Ruth's mind: "Did Helen have reason for expecting this visit, and not warn me?"

"Up!" commanded the previous speaker among the white-robed company. "Your doom awaits you."

Helen put her bare feet out of bed, but was allowed to put her slippers on. The chums were in their night apparel only. Fortunately the air breathed in at the open window was warm. So there was no danger of their getting cold.

The two new girls were placed side by side. Helen was not gagged as Ruth was; but, of course, she had uttered only that single startled cry when she awoke. There was great solemnity among the shrouded figures as the chums stood in their midst. The girl who had previously spoken (and whom Ruth was quite positive was Mary Cox—for she seemed to be the leader and prime mover in this event) swept everything off the table and mounted upon it, where she sat cross-legged—like a tailor, or a Turk.

"Bring the culprits before the throne!" she commanded, in a sepulchral voice.

Helen actually giggled. But Ruth did not feel much like laughing. The ball of rags in her mouth had begun to hurt her, and she was held tightly by her two guards so that she could not have an instant's freedom. She was not, in addition, quite sure that these girls would not attempt to haze their prisoners in some unbecoming, or dangerous, way. Therefore, she was not undisturbed in her mind as she stood in the midst of the shrouded company of her school-fellows.



CHAPTER X

SOMETHING MORE THAN GHOSTS

Helen pinched Ruth's arm. It was plain that her guards did not hold Helen as tightly as they did Ruth. And why was that? Ruth thought. Could it be possible that her chum had had warning of this midnight visitation?

Not that Ruth felt very much fear of the outcome of the exercises; but the possibility that her old friend had kept any secret knowledge of the raid from her troubled Ruth immensely. Since they had come among the girls of Briarwood Hall—and that so few hours before—Ruth felt that she and Helen were not so close together. There was danger of their drifting apart, and the possibility troubled Ruth Fielding exceedingly.

The thought of it now, however, was but momentary. Naturally she was vitally interested in what was about to be done to her by the party of hazers.

"I am pained," said the girl sitting on the table, "that one of the neophytes comes before us with a bigger mouthful than she can swallow. If she understands fully that a single word above a whisper—or any word at all unless she is addressed by the Sisters—will be punished by her being instantly corked up again, the gag may be removed. Do you understand, Neophyte? Nod once!"

Ruth, glad to get rid of the unpleasant mouthful on any terms, nodded vigorously. Immediately her captors let go of her arms and one of them pulled the "stopper" out of her mouth.

"Now, remember!" uttered the girl on the table, warningly. "A word aloud and the plug goes back." Helen giggled again, but Ruth didn't feel like laughing herself. "Now, culprits!" continued the leader of the hazing party, "you must be judged for your temerity. How dared you come to Briarwood Hall, Infants?"

"Please, Ma'am," whispered Helen, who seemed to think the whole affair a great lark, "our guardians sent us here. We are not responsible."

"You may not so easily escape responsibility for your acts," hissed the girl on the table. "Those who enter Briarwood Hall must show themselves worthy of the high honor. It takes courage to come under the eye of Mrs. Tellingham; it takes supernatural courage to come under the eye of Picolet!"

"If she wasn't out of the house to-night you may believe we wouldn't be out of bed," murmured another of the midnight visitors, whom Ruth was quite sure was Belle Tingley.

"And I hope you made no mistake about that, Miss!" snapped the girl on the table. "You went to her door."

"And knocked, and asked for toothache drops," giggled another of the shrouded figures.

"And she wasn't there. I pushed the door open," muttered the other girl. "I know she went out. I heard the door open and shut half an hour before."

"She's a sly one, she is," declared the girl on the table. "But, enough of Picolet. It is these small infants we have to judge; not that old cat. We say they have shown temerity in coming to Briarwood—is it not so, friends and fellow members—ahem! is it not so?"

There was a responsive giggle from the shrouded figures about the room.

"Then punishment must be the portion of these Infants," declared the foremost hazer. "They claim that they were sent here against their will and that it was not reckless bravery that brought them to these scholastic halls. Let them prove their courage then—what say the Sisters?"

The Sisters giggled a good deal, but the majority seemed to be of the opinion that proof of the Infants' courage should be exacted.

"Then let the Golden Goblet be brought," commanded the leader, her voice still carefully lowered, for even if Miss Picolet was out of the dormitory, Miss Scrimp, the matron, was asleep in her own room, likewise on the lower floor of the building. Somebody produced a vase which had evidently been covered with bright gold-foil for the occasion. "Here," said the leader, holding the vase out to Helen. "Take this Golden Goblet and fill it at the fountain on the campus. You will be taken down to the door by the guards, who will await your return and will bring you back again. And remember! Silence!"

The lights all around the campus had gone out ere this. There was no moon, and although it was a clear night, with countless stars in the heavens, it seemed dark and lonely indeed down there under the trees between the school buildings.

"Do not hesitate, Infant!" commanded the leader of the hazing party. "Nor shall you think to befool us, Miss! Take the Golden Goblet, and fill and drink at the fountain. But leave the goblet there, that we may know you have accomplished the task set you!"

This was said most solemnly; but the solemnity would not have bothered Helen Cameron at all, had the task been given to somebody else! The thought of venturing out there in the dark on the campus rather quelled her propensity for giggling.

But there seemed to be no way of begging off from the trial. Helen cast a look of pleading at her chum; but what could Ruth do? She was surprised that the task had not been given to her instead; she believed that these girls were really more friendly in feeling toward Helen than toward herself. At least, it was Mary Cox on the table, and Mary Cox had shown Helen much more attention than she had Ruth.

Two of the sheeted visitors seized Helen again and led her softly out of the room. A sentinel had been left in the corridor, and the word was whispered that all was silent in the house; Miss Scrimp was known to be a heavy sleeper, and the French teacher was certainly absent from her room.

The girls led Helen downstairs and to the outer door. This opened with a spring lock. The guards whispered that they would remain to await her return, and the new girl was pushed out of doors, with nothing over her nightgown but a wrapper, and only slippers on her feet.

Although there was little breeze now, it was not cold. But it was dark under the trees. Ruth, who could look out of the windows above, wondered how her chum was getting on. To go clear to the center of the campus with that vase, and leave it at the foot of the figure surmounting the fountain, was no pleasant experience, Ruth felt.

The minutes passed slowly, the girls in their shrouds whispering among themselves. Suddenly there came a sound from outside—a pattering of running feet on the cement walk. Ruth sprang to the nearest window in spite of the commands of the hazing party. Helen was running toward the house at a speed which betrayed her agitation. Besides, Ruth could hear her sobbing under her breath:

"Oh, oh, oh!"

"You've scared her half to death!" exclaimed Ruth, angrily, as the girls seized her.

"Put in the stopper!" commanded the girl who had seated herself on the table, and instantly the ball of rags was driven into Ruth's mouth again and she was held, in spite of her struggles, by her captors.

Ruth was angry now. Helen had been tricked into going to the fountain, and by some means the hazers had frightened her on her journey. But it was a couple of minutes before her chum was brought back to the room. Helen was shivering and sobbing between the guards—indeed they held her up, for she would have fallen.

"What's the matter with the great booby?" demanded the girl on the table.

"She—she says she heard something, or saw something, at the fountain," said one of the other girls, in a quavering voice.

"Of course she did—they always do," declared the leader. "Isn't the fountain haunted? We know it is so."

This was all said for effect, and to impress her, Ruth knew. But she tried to go to Helen. They held her back, however, and she could not speak.

"Did the Neophyte go to the fountain?" demanded the leader, sternly.

Helen, in spite of her tears, nodded vigorously.

"Did she drink of the water there?"

"I—I was drinking it when I—I heard somebody——"

"The ghost of the very beautiful woman whose statue adorns the fountain," declared Mary Cox, if it were she, in a sepulchral voice.

Ruth knew now why the story of the fountain had been told them earlier in the evening, but personally she had not been much impressed by it then, nor was she frightened now. She was only indignant that Helen and she should be treated so—and by these very girls for whom her chum had conceived such a fancy.

Helen was still trembling. They let her sit down upon her bed, and Ruth wanted to go to her more than ever, and comfort her. But the girl on the table brought her up short.

"Now, Miss!" she exclaimed. "You are the next. The first Infant has left the Golden Goblet at the fountain—you did leave it there; didn't you, you 'fraid-cat?" she demanded sharply, of Helen. Helen bobbed her head and sobbed. "Then," said the leader of the hazing party, "you go and bring it here."

Ruth stared at her in surprise. She did not move.

"Take out her gag. Lead her to the door. If she does not come back with the Golden Goblet, lock her out and let her cool her temper till morning on the grass," said the girl on the table, cruelly. "And if she stirs up trouble, she'll wish she had never come to Briarwood!"



CHAPTER XI

THE VOICE OF THE HARP

"Among two hundred girls there are bound to be girls of a good many different kinds." So had said Mrs. Tellingham when Ruth Fielding and her chum presented themselves before the Preceptress not many hours before. And Ruth saw plainly that some of these shrouded and masked figures, at least, were of the kind against whom Mrs. Tellingham had quietly warned them. These were not alone careless and thoughtless, however; but the girl whom Ruth believed to be Mary Cox, their whilom friend and guide, was cruel likewise.

Ruth Fielding was no coward. She believed these girls had arranged to terrify their victims by some manifestation at the fountain—why, otherwise, had they sent Helen there and now were determined to make Ruth repeat the experience? Nor was it necessary for the leader of the crew of hazers to remind the girl from the Red Mill how unpleasant they could make it for her if the dared report them to the teachers.

"Now, First Neophyte!" exclaimed the leader of their visitors. "Where did you leave the Golden Goblet?"

"On the pedestal, right between the feet of the figure," sobbed Helen.

"You hear?" repeated the other, turning her shrouded face to Ruth. "Then go, drink likewise of the fountain, and bring back the goblet. Failure to perform this task will be punished not only in the present, but in the future. Take her away—and remember your orders, guards."

The door was opened ever so quietly and the sentinel outside assured them that nobody had stirred. All had been so far conducted so carefully that even the other girls not in the plot were not awakened. As Ruth was led past the door of the larger room, which she knew Mary Cox and her three chums occupied, she heard the unmistakable snoring of a sound sleeper within. It made her doubt if, after all, those four who had appeared so friendly to Helen and herself that evening, were among the hazers; and she heard one of her guards whisper:

"Miss Picolet never has to look into that room to learn if they're asleep. Listen to Heavy, will you?"

But this puzzlement did not stick in Ruth's mind for long; the guards hustled her down the stairs and the outer door was opened.

"If the cat should suddenly come back, wouldn't we just catch it?" whispered one girl to the other.

"Now, don't you be forever and ever going to that fountain," said the other to Ruth. "For if you are long, we'll just shut the door on you and run back."

As she spoke she let go of Ruth's arm and jerked the gag out of her mouth. Then the two pushed the new girl out of the door and closed it softly. Ruth could hear them whispering together behind the panels.

Like Helen, she had been given her bath-gown. She was not cold. But it was truth that the memory of her chum's state of mind when she had come back from the visit to the fountain, gave Ruth Fielding an actual chill. Helen had set out upon her venture without much worriment of mind; but she had been badly frightened. Ruth believed this fright had been wickedly planned by the hazing crew of girls; nevertheless she could not help being troubled in her own mind as she looked out into the dimness of the campus.

Not a sound rose from this court between the buildings. A few dim night-lights were visible in the windows about the campus; but the lamps that illumined the walks and the park itself were burned out. The breeze was so faint that it did not rustle the smallest branches of the trees. There was not a sound from anywhere upon the campus.

Remembering the promise of the two girls who had thrust her out of the house, Ruth thought it best for her to get the unpleasant business over as quickly as possible. Although she could not see the sunken fountain from the steps of the dormitory where she stood, she knew which path to take to get to it the quickest. She started along this path at once, walking until she was surely out of view of the girls in the windows above, and then running to the fountain. She had some objection to giving her new schoolmates the satisfaction of seeing that she was at all frightened by this midnight jaunt.

She sped along the path and there was the statue looming right before her. The trickle of the water, spouting into the basin, made a low and pleasant sound. Nothing moved about the fountain.

"Perhaps, after all, Helen only imagined there was somebody here," thought Ruth, and she pattered down the steps in her slippers, and so climbed upon the marble ledge from which she could reach the gilded goblet which was, as Helen had declared, placed between the feet of the marble statue.

And then, suddenly, there was a rustle near at hand. Was that a whisper—a sharp, muffled gasp? Ruth was startled, indeed, and shuddered so that the "goose-flesh" seemed to start all over her. Nevertheless, she clutched the goblet firmly and held it beneath one of the spouts of the fountain. She was convinced that if there was anybody behind the figure of marble, he was there for the express purpose of frightening her—and she was determined not to be frightened.

The goblet was quickly filled and Ruth held it to her lips. She might be watched, and she was determined to obey the mandate of the masked leader of the hazing party. She would not give them the right to say that she was panic-stricken.

And then, with an unexpectedness that held her for an instant spellbound, she heard a hasty hand sweep the taut strings of a harp! She was directly below the figure and—if the truth must be told—she looked up in horror, expecting to see the marble representation of a harp vibrating under that sudden stroke!

There was no movement, of course, in the marble. There was no further sound about the fountain. But the echo of that crash of music vibrated across the campus and died away hollowly between the buildings. It had been no sound called up by her imagination; the harp had been sounded with a sure and heavy hand.

Ruth Fielding confessed her terror now on the instant. When power of movement returned to her, she leaped from the basin's edge, scurried up the steps to the path, and dashed at top speed for the dormitory, bearing the goblet in one hand and catching up the draperies of her long garment so as not to ensnare her feet.

She reached the building and dashed up the steps. The door was ajar, but the shrouded guards were nowhere visible. She burst into the hall, banged the door after her, and ran up the stairs in blind terror, with no care for anybody, or anything else! Into the room at the end of the corridor she hurried, and found it——

Deserted, save for her chum, Helen Cameron, cowering in her bed. The masked and shrouded figures were gone, and Ruth found herself standing, panting and gasping, in the middle of the room, with the half-filled goblet in her hand, her heart beating as though it would burst.



CHAPTER XII

THE MYSTERY DEEPENS

There was some movement downstairs now. Ruth Fielding heard a door open and a voice speak in the lower corridor. Perhaps it was Miss Scrimp, the matron. But every one of the skylarkers had cut to bed, and the dormitories were as still as need be.

"Oh, Ruth!" gasped Helen, from her muffling bed clothes. "Did you hear it?"

"Did I hear what?" panted Ruth.

"Oh! I was so frightened. There is something dreadful about that fountain. I heard whisperings and rustlings there; but the harp——"

"They did it to scare us," declared Ruth, in both anger and relief. She had been badly frightened, but she was getting control of herself now.

"Then they frightened themselves," declared Helen, sitting up in bed. "You heard the harp?"

"I should say so!"

"We were all at the window listening to hear if you would be frightened and run," whispered Helen. "Oh, Ruthie!"

"What's the matter, now?" demanded her chum.

"I—I tried to help them. It was mean. I knew they were trying to scare you, and I helped them. I wasn't so scared myself as I appeared when I came in."

"WHAT?"

"I don't know what's made me act so mean to you this evening," sobbed Helen. "I'm sure I love you, Ruth. And I know you wouldn't have treated me so. But they said they were just going to have some fun with you——"

"Who said?" demanded Ruth.

"Mary Cox—and—and the others."

"They told you they were coming to haze us?"

"The Upedes—ye-es," admitted Helen. "And of course, it wouldn't have amounted to anything if that—— Oh, Ruth! was it truly the harp that sounded?"

"How could that marble harp make any sound?" demanded Ruth, sharply.

"But I know the girls were scared—just as scared as I was. They expected nothing of the kind. And the twang of the strings sounded just as loud as—as—well, as loud as that fat man's playing on the boat sounded. Do you remember?"

Ruth remembered. And suddenly the thought suggested by her frightened chum entered her mind and swelled in it to vast proportions. She could, in fact, think of little else than this new idea. She hushed Helen as best she could. She told her she forgave her—but she said it unfeelingly and more to hush her chum than aught else. She wanted to think out this new train of thought to its logical conclusion.

"Hush and go to sleep, Helen," she advised. "We shall neither of us be fit to get up at rising bell. It is very late. I—I wish those girls had remained in their own rooms, that I do!"

"But there is one thing about it," said Helen, with half a sob and half a chuckle. "They were more frightened than we were when they scuttled out of this room before you returned. Oh! you should have seen them."

Ruth would say no more to her. There had been no light lit in all this time, and now she snuggled down into her own bed. The excitement of the recent happenings did not long keep Helen awake; but her friend and room-mate lay for some time studying out the mystery of the campus.

Miss Picolet was out of her room.

The old Irishman, Tony Foyle, had mentioned chasing itinerant musicians off the grounds that very evening—among them a harpist.

The evil-looking man who played the harp on board the steamship, and who had so frightened little Miss Picolet, had followed the French teacher ashore.

Had he followed her to Briarwood Hall? Was he an enemy who plagued the little French teacher—perhaps blackmailed her?

These were the various ideas revolving in Ruth Fielding's head. And they revolved until the girl fell asleep from sheer exhaustion, and they troubled her sleep all through the remainder of the night. For that the man with the harp and Miss Picolet had a rendezvous behind the marble figure on the campus fountain was the sum and substance of the conclusion which Ruth had come to.

In the morning Ruth only mentioned these suppositions to Helen, but discussed them not at all with the other girls, her new school-fellows. Indeed, those girls who had set out to haze the two Infants, and had been frightened by the manifestation of the sounding harp upon the campus, were not likely to broach the subject to Ruth or Helen, either. For they had intended to surround their raid upon the new-comers' peace of mind with more or less secrecy.

However, sixteen frightened girls (without counting Ruth and Helen) could not be expected to keep such a mystery as this a secret among themselves. That the marble harp had been sounded—that the ghost of the campus had returned to haunt the school—was known among the students of Briarwood Hall before breakfast time. Jennie Stone was quite full of it, although Ruth knew from the unimpeachable testimony of Jennie's nose that she was not among the hazers; and the sounding of the mysterious harp-strings in the middle of the night really endangered Heavy's appetite for breakfast.

The members of the Upedes who had been so pleasant with them at the evening meeting seemed rather chary of speaking to Ruth and Helen how; and, anyway, the chums had enough to do to get their boxes unpacked and their keepsakes set about the room, and to complete various housekeeping arrangements. They enjoyed setting up their "goods and chattels" quite as much as they expected to; and really their school life began quite pleasantly despite the excitement and misunderstanding on the first night of their arrival.

If the crowd that Ruth was so sure had hazed them were slow about attending on the two Infants in the West Dormitory (as their building was called) there were plenty of other nice girls who looked into the duet in a friendly way, or who spoke to Ruth and Helen on the campus, or in the dining room. Miss Polk and Madge Steele were not the only Seniors who showed the chums some attention, either; and Ruth and Helen began secretly to count the little buttons marked "F. C." which they saw, as compared with the few stars bearing the intertwined "U" and "D" of the Upedes.

Just the same, Helen Cameron's leaning toward the lively group or girls in their house who had (it seemed) formed their club in protest against the Forward Club, was still marked. The friends heard that the last named association was governed by the Preceptress and teachers almost entirely. That it was "poky" and "stuffy." That some girls (not altogether those who formed the membership of the Upedes) considered it "toadying" to join the Forward Club. And on this second day Ruth and Helen saw that the rivalry for membership between the clubs was very keen indeed. A girl couldn't have friends among the members of both the F. C.'s and the Upedes—that was plain.

Many new girls arrived on this day—mostly from the Lumberton direction. That was another reason, perhaps, why Ruth and Helen were shown so little attention by the quartette of girls next door o them. They were all busy—even Heavy herself—in herding the new girls whom they had entangled in the tentacles of the Upedes. The chums found themselves untroubled by the F. C.'s; it seemed to be a settled fact among the girls that Ruth and Helen were pledged to the Upedes.

"But we are not," Ruth Fielding said, to her friend. "I don't like this way of doing business at all, Helen—do you?"

"Well—but what does it matter?" queried Helen, pouting. "We want to get in with a lively set; don't we? I'm sure the Upedes are nice girls."

"I don't like the leadership of them," said Ruth, frankly.

"Miss Cox?"

"Miss Cox—exactly," said the girl from the Red Mill.

"Oh—well—she isn't everything," cried Helen.

"She comes pretty near being the boss of that club—you can see that. Now, the question is, do we want to be bossed by a girl like her?"

"Then, do you want to be under the noses of the teachers, and toadying to them all the time?" cried Helen.

"If that is what is meant by belonging to the Forward Club, I certainly do not," admitted Ruth.

"Then I don't see but you will have to start a secret society of your own," declared Helen, laughing somewhat ruefully.

"And perhaps that wouldn't be such a bad idea," returned Ruth, slowly. "I understand that there are nearly thirty new girls coming to Briarwood this half who will enter the Junior classes. Of course, the Primary pupils don't count. I talked with a couple of them at dinner. They feel just as I do about it—there is too much pulling and hauling about these societies. They are not sure that they wish to belong to either the Upedes or the F. C.'s."

"But just think!" wailed Helen. "How much fun we would be cut out of! We wouldn't have any friends——"

"That's nonsense. At least, if the whole of us thirty Infants, as they call us, flocked together by ourselves, why wouldn't we have plenty of society? I'm not so sure that it wouldn't be a good idea to suggest it to the others."

"Oh, my! would you dare?" gasped Helen. "And we've only just arrived ourselves?"

"Self-protection is the first selfish law of nature," paraphrased Ruth, smiling; "and I'm not sure that it's a bad idea to be selfish on such an occasion."

"You'd just make yourself ridiculous," scoffed Helen. "To think of a crowd of freshies getting up an order—a secret society."

"In self-protection," laughed Ruth.

"I guess Mrs. Tellingham would have something to say about it, too," declared Helen.

It was not the subject of school clubs that was the burden of Ruth Fielding's thought for most of that day, however. Nor did the arrival of so many new scholars put the main idea in her mind aside. This troubling thought was of Miss Picolet and the sound of the harp on the campus at midnight. The absence of the French teacher from the dormitory, the connection of the little lady with the obese foreigner who played the harp on the Lanawaxa, and the sounding of harp-strings on the campus in the middle of the night, were all dovetailed together in Ruth Fielding's mind. She wondered what the mystery meant.

She saw Tony Foyle cleaning the campus lanterns during the day, and she stopped and spoke to him.

"I heard you tell Jennie Stone last night that you had to drive street musicians away from the school grounds, sir?" said Ruth, quietly. "Was there a man with a harp among them?"

"Sure an' there was," declared Tony, nodding. "And he was a sassy dago, at that! 'Tis well I'm a mon who kapes his temper, or 'twould ha' gone har-r-rd wid him."

"A big man, was he, Mr. Foyle?" asked Ruth.

"What had that to do wid it?" demanded the old man, belligerently. "When the Foyles' dander is riz it ain't size that's goin' to stop wan o' that name from pitchin' into an' wallopin' the biggest felly that iver stepped. He was big," he added; "but I've seen bigger. Him an' his red vest—and jabberin' like the foreign monkey he was. I'll show him!"

Ruth left Tony shaking his head and muttering angrily as he pursued his occupation. Ruth found herself deeply interested in the mystery of the campus; but if she had actually solved the problem of the sounding of the harp at midnight, the reason for the happening, and what really brought that remarkable manifestation about, was as deep a puzzle to her as before.



CHAPTER XIII

BEGINNINGS

Youth adapts itself easily and naturally to all change. Ruth Fielding and her chum, before that second evening at Briarwood Hall drew in, felt as though they had known the place for months and some of the girls all their lives. It was thus the most natural thing in the world to assemble at meals when the school-bell tapped its summons, to stand while the grace was being said, to chatter and laugh with those at the table at which they sat, to speak and laugh with the waitresses, and with old Tony Foyle, and with Miss Scrimp, the matron of their house, and to bow respectfully to Miss Picolet, Miss Kennedy, the English teacher; Miss O'Hara, before whom Ruth and Helen would come in mathematics, and the other teachers as they learned their names.

Dr. Tellingham, although affording some little amusement for the pupils because of his personal peculiarities, was really considered by the girls in general a deeply learned man, and when he chanced to trot by a group of the students on the campus, in his stoop-shouldered, purblind way, their voices became hushed and they looked after him as though he really was all he pretended to be—or all he thought he was. He delved in histories—ate, slept, and seemed to draw the breath of his nostrils from histories. That the pamphlets and books he wrote were of trivial importance, and seldom if ever saw the light of print, was not made manifest to the Briarwood girls in general.

Ruth and Helen were not unpopular from the start. Helen was so pretty and so vivacious, that she was bound to gather around her almost at once those girls who were the more easily attracted by such a nature; while for Ruth's part, the little Primes found that she was both kind and loving. She did not snub the smaller girls who came to her for any help, and before this day was over (which was Friday) they began to steal into the chums' duet, in twos and threes, to talk with Ruth Fielding. It had been so at the school near the Red Mill, and Ruth was glad the little folk took to her.

Late in the afternoon the two friends from Cheslow went out to the main entrance of the grounds to meet Old Dolliver's stage from Seven Oaks. It had been noised abroad that a whole nursery of Infants was expected by that conveyance, and Mary Cox and Madge Steele, each with her respective committee, were in waiting to greet the new-comers on behalf of their separate societies.

"And we'll welcome them as fellow-infants," whispered Ruth to Helen. "Let's hold a reception in our room this evening to all the newcomers. What say, Helen?"

Her chum was a little doubtful as to the wisdom of this course. She did not like to offend their friends in the Upedes. Yet the suggestion attracted Helen, too.

"I suppose if we freshmen stick together we'll have a better time, after all," she agreed.

As the time for the appearance of the stage drew near, approximately half the school was gathered to see the Infants disembark from Old Dolliver's Ark. Mary Cox arranged her Upedes on one side of the path and they began to sing:

"Uncle Noah, he drove an Ark— One wide river to cross! He made a landing at Briarwood Park— One wide river to cross! One wide river! One wide river of Jordan! One wide river! One wide river to cross!"

Old Dolliver, all one wide grin and flapping duster, drove his bony horses to the stopping place with a flourish.

"Here we be!" he croaked. "The old craft is jest a-bulgin' over with Infants."

Mary Cox pulled open the door and the first newcomer popped out as though she had been clinging to the handle when The Fox made the movement.

"The Infants got out, one by one— One wide river to cross! First Infant bumps into a great big Stone— One wide river to cross!"

And there really was Heavy to receive the newcomer with open arms, who said, while the others chanted the refrain:

"My name's Jennie Stone, and you're very welcome to Briarwood, and what's your name, Infant?"

The girls in the stage-coach had been forewarned by Old Dolliver as to their probable greeting, and they took this all in good part. They disembarked with their bags and parcels, while Tony Foyle appeared to help Old Dolliver down with the heavier luggage that was strapped upon the roof and in the boot behind. Mary Cox continued to line out the doggerel, inventing some telling hits as she went along, while the Upedes came in strongly on the refrain.

There was much laughter and confusion; but the arriving Infants were lined up two by two between the long rows of Briarwood girls and were forced to march toward the Hall by this narrow path.

"Come! we are Infants, too," exclaimed Ruth, pulling Helen by the sleeve. "We will lead the march."

She drew her chum away with her, and they introduced themselves to the girls at the head of the column of freshies.

"We are Helen Cameron and Ruth Fielding," said Ruth, cordially. "We only got here yesterday, so we are Infants, too. We will take you to the office of the Preceptress."

So the chums bore their share of the indignity of being marched up through the grounds like culprits, and halted the file at the steps of the main building.

"We have Duet Number 2 in the West Dormitory," said Ruth, boldly, to the new-comers. "When you have found your rooms and got settled—after supper, that will be,—you are all invited to come to our room and get acquainted with the other Infants. We're going to get as many together this evening as we can. Now, do come!"

"Oh, Ruth!" whispered Helen, when they were out of ear-shot of the others. "What will the Upedes say?"

"We're not interfering with either of the school clubs," declared her chum, emphatically. "But I guess it won't hurt us to become acquainted with those who are as new here as ourselves. The old girls don't feel strange, or lost; it is these new ones that need to be made to feel at home."

Timid for herself, Ruth had begun to develop that side of her character which urged her to be bold for the general good. She appreciated keenly how awkward she had felt when she arrived at Briarwood the day before. Helen, although not lacking in kindliness, was less thoughtful than her chum; and she was actually less bold than her chum, too.

Ruth made it a point to see and speak with all the new scholars whom she could find, repeating her invitation for a meeting in her room. Whether Helen helped in this matter she did not know. Her chum was not enthusiastic in the task, that was certain. And indeed, when the hour came, after supper, Helen was closeted with Mary Cox in the quartette room next door to the chamber and study which she and Ruth Fielding shared together.

That Ruth felt more than a little hurt, it is unnecessary to say. She had felt the entering wedge between them within a few hours of their coming to the school. The Upedes were much more friendly to Helen than to herself, and Helen was vastly interested in Mary Cox, Belle Tingley, Lluella Fairfax, and some of the other livelier members of the Up and Doing Club.

But, after a while Helen strolled into her own room and mingled with the Infants who had there assembled. They had come almost to their full strength. There were no sessions of either the F. C.'s or the Upedes on this evening, and Miss Picolet, to whom Ruth had spoken about the little reception to be held in her room, approved of it. Helen was bound to be popular among any crowd of girls, for she was so gay and good-tempered. But when somebody broached the subject of school clubs, Ruth was surprised that Helen should at once talk boldly for the Upedes. She really urged their cause as though she was already a member.

"I am not at all sure that I wish to join either the Forwards or the Up and Doings," said Ruth, quietly, when one of the other Infants asked her what she intended doing.

"But you'll have no friends here—not among the Juniors and Seniors, at least—if you don't join some club!" Helen exclaimed.

"There are enough of us right here to found a society, I should say," laughed Ruth. "And we're all in the same boat, too."

"Yes!" agreed Sarah Fish, one of the Infants just arrived. "And what do these older girls really care about us? Very little, I am sure, except to strengthen their own clubs. I can see that," she continued, being a very practical, sensible girl, and downright in speech and manner. "Two of them came into our room at once—the girl they call The Fox, and Miss Steele. One argued for the Forwards and the other for the Up and Doings. I don't want either."

"I don't want to join either," broke in another girl, by name Phyllis Short. "I think it would be nicer for us Infants, as they call us, to keep together. And we're no younger than a good many of the Juniors!"

Ruth laughed. "We expect to take all that good-naturedly. But I don't like the idea of being driven into one society, or the other. And I don't mean to be," she said, emphatically.

"Hear! hear!" cried Miss Fish.

"Well, I don't think it will be nice at all," said Helen, in some heat, "to refuse to associate with the older girls here. I, for one, want to get into the real school society——"

"But suppose we start a club of our own?" interrupted the practical Sarah.

"Why, what could just a handful of new girls do in a society? It would look silly," cried Helen.

"We won't keep the older girls out of it, if they want to join," laughed Sarah.

"And there has to be a beginning to everything," rejoined Phyllis Short.

"I don't believe those Upedes have many more members than are right in this room to-night," said Ruth, quietly. "How many do we number here—twenty-six?"

"Twenty-six, counting your room-mate," said Sarah.

"Well, you can count her room-mate out," declared Helen, sharply. "I am not going to make myself a laughing-stock of the school by joining any baby society."

"Well," said Phyllis Short, calmly. "It's always nicer, I think, to be a big frog in a little puddle than to be an unrecognised croaker in a great, big pool."

Most of the girls laughed at that. And the suggestion of a separate club for the Infants seemed to be well received. Ruth, however, was very much troubled by Helen's attitude, and she would say no more beyond this:

"We will think of it. There is plenty of time. Only, those who feel as we do——"

"As you do!" snapped Helen.

"As I do, then, if you insist," said Ruth, bravely, "would better not pledge themselves to either the F. C.'s or the Upedes until we have talked this new idea over."

And with that the company broke up and the new girls went away to their rooms. But Helen and Ruth found a barrier raised between them that evening, and the latter sprinkled her pillow with a few quiet tears before she went to sleep.



CHAPTER XIV

THE SWEETBRIARS

Mail time!

Until Saturday morning Ruth and Helen had not realized how vital that hour was when the mail-bag came out from the Lumberton post office and the mail was distributed by one of the teachers into a series of pigeonholes in a tiny "office" built into the corridor at the dining-room door. The mail arrived during the breakfast hour. One could get her letters when she came out of the dining-room, and on this Saturday both Ruth and Helen had letters.

Miss Cramp, her old teacher, had written to Ruth very kindly. There was a letter, too, from Aunt Alvirah, addressed in her old-fashioned hand, and its contents shaky both as to spelling and grammar, but full of love for the girl who was so greatly missed at the Red Mill. Uncle Jabez had even declared the first night that it seemed as though there had been a death in the house, with Ruth gone.

Helen had several letters, but the one that delighted her most was from her twin brother.

"Although," she declared, in her usual sweet-tempered manner, "Tom's written it to both of us. Listen here, Ruthie!"

The new cadet at Seven Oaks began his letter: "Dead [Transcriber's note: Dear?] Sweetbriars," including Ruth as well as Helen in his friendly and brotherly effusion. He had been hazed with a vengeance on the first night of his arrival at the Academy; he had been chummed on a fellow who had already been half a year at the school and whose sister was a Senior at Briarwood; he had learned that lots of the older students at Seven Oaks were acquainted with the Seniors at Briarwood, and that there were certain times when the two schools intermingled socially.

"Dear old Tom!" exclaimed Helen. "Nice of him to call us 'Sweetbriars'; isn't it? I guess there's a good many thorns on this 'sweetbriar'; 'eh, Ruthie?" and she hugged and kissed her chum with sudden fierceness.

"And Tom says he can get permission to come over and see me some Saturday afternoon if Mrs. Tellingham will allow it. I'll have to get her to write to Major Paradell, who commands at Seven Oaks. My! it sounds just as though poor old Tom was in the army; doesn't it?" cried Helen.

"It will be nice to have him over," said Ruth, agreeing. "But I suppose we'll have to meet him in the office? Or can we walk out with our 'brother'?" and she laughed.

"We'll go to Triton Lake; Tom will take us," said Helen, decidedly.

"I guess Mrs. Tellingham will have something to say about that, my dear."

Helen seemed to have forgotten the little difficulty that had troubled her chum and herself the night before, and Ruth said nothing further about the Infants forming a society of their own. At least, she said nothing about it to Helen. But Sarah Fish and Phyllis Short, and some of the other Infants, seemed determined to keep the idea alive, and they all considered Ruth Fielding a prime mover in the conspiracy. It was noised abroad that neither the F. C.'s nor the Upedes were getting many new names enrolled for membership.

Saturday morning the remainder of the expected new girls arrived at Briarwood, and with then came the last of the older scholars, too. There was an assembly called for two o'clock which Mrs. Tellingham addressed. She welcomed the new-comers, greeted the returning pupils, and briefly sketched the plans for the school year then beginning. She was a quick, briskly-speaking woman, who impressed the most rattle-pated girl before her that she meant to be obeyed and that no wild prank would go unpunished.

"Proper amusement will be supplied in due time, young ladies. For the present we shall all have enough to do getting settled into our places. I have heard something regarding picnics and outings for the near future. Postpone all such junketing until we are pulling well together. And beware of demerits. Remember that ten of them, for whatever cause, will send a girl home from Briarwood immediately."

This about the picnics hit the Upedes. Ruth and Helen knew that they were planning just such amusements. Helen took this interference on Mrs. Tellingham's part quite to heart.

"Isn't it mean of her?" she asked of Ruth. "If it had been the Fussy Curls who wanted to go to Triton Lake, it would have been another matter. And—besides—I was going to write to Tom and see if he couldn't meet us there."

"Why, Helen; without asking Mrs. Tellingham?" cried Ruth.

"I suppose Tom and some of his chums could happen to go to Triton Lake the same day we went; couldn't they?" Helen asked, laughing. "Dear me, Ruthie! Don't you begin to act the Miss Prim—please! We'll have no fun at all if you do."

"But we don't want to make the bad beginning of getting Mrs. Tellingham and the teachers down on us right at the start," said Ruth, in a worried manner.

"I don't know but that you are a Miss Prim!" ejaculated Helen.

Ruth thought, probably, from her tone of voice, that Helen had heard some of her friends among the Upedes already apply that term to her, Ruth. But she said nothing—only shook her head. However, the girl from the Red Mill did her best to dodge any subject in the future that she thought might cause Helen to compare her unfavorably with the girls next door.

For Ruth loved her chum dearly—and loved her unselfishly, too. Helen and Tom had been so kind to her in the past—all through those miserable first weeks of her life at the Red Mill—that Ruth felt she could never be really angry with Helen. It only made her sorrowful to think that perhaps Helen, in this new and wider school life, might drift away from her.

The regular program of the working days of the school included prayers in the chapel before the girls separated for their various classes. These were held at nine o'clock. But on Sunday Ruth found that breakfast was an hour later than usual and that at ten o'clock several wagonettes, besides Old Dolliver's Ark, were in waiting to take those girls who wished to ride to the churches of the several denominations located in Lumberton. A teacher, or a matron, went in each vehicle, and if any of the girls preferred to walk in pleasant weather there was always a teacher to walk with them—for the distance was only a mile.

Dinner was at half-past one, and at three there was a Sabbath School, conducted by Mrs. Tellingham herself, assisted by most of the teachers, in the large assembly hall. At night there was a service of music and a lecture in the chapel, too. The teacher of music played the organ, and there was a small string orchestra made up of the girls themselves, and a chorus to lead the singing.

This service Ruth found delightful, for she had always loved music and never before had she had the opportunity of studying it under any teacher. Her voice was sweet and strong, however; and she had a true ear. At the end of the service Miss Maconahay, the organist, came and spoke to her and advised her that, providing she would give some time to it, there was a chance for her to become a member of the chorus and, if she showed improvement, she might even join the Glee Club.

On Monday school began in earnest. Ruth and Helen were side by side in every class. What study one took up, the other voted for. The fact that they had to work hard—especially at first—kept Ruth and Helen together, and during the first week neither had much time for any society at all. Between supper and bedtime each evening they faithfully worked at their lessons for the ensuing day and every hour of daylight brought its separate duty. There seemed to be little opportunity for idle hands to find mischief at Briarwood Hall.

Mrs. Tellingham, however, did not propose that the girls should be so closely confined by their studies that their physical health would be neglected. Those girls who stood well in their classes found at least two hours each day for outdoor play or gym work. The tennis courts at Briarwood were in splendid shape. Helen already was a fair player; but Ruth had never held a racket in her hand until she was introduced to the game by her chum during this first week at school.

The girl from the Red Mill was quick and active. She learned the rules of play and proved that her eye was good and that she had judgment before they had played an hour. She knew how to leap and run, too, having been country bred and used to an active life.

"Oh, dear me!" gasped Helen, out of breath. "You are tireless, Ruth. Why, you'll be an athlete here."

"This is great fun, Helen," declared her chum, "I believe I can learn to play this game."

"Learn to play!" gasped Helen. "Why, all you want is practice to beat Tom himself, I believe. You'll be a crack player, Ruthie," prophesied her friend.

It was while they were loitering on the tennis courts after the game that Sarah Fish and Phyllis Short, with a number of the other Infants, joined them. Sarah came out bluntly with:

"When are we going to form our club, Ruth Fielding? I think we should do it at once. I've told both the Forwards and the Upedes that I am not in the market. I guess they'll let me alone now."

"I think they will," said Helen, sharply. "At least, the Upedes don't want you, Miss."

"You seem to knew exactly what they do want," said Sarah, good-naturedly. "Have you joined them?"

"I intend to," declared Helen.

"Oh, Helen!" ejaculated Ruth.

"Yes, I am," said Miss Cameron. "And I am not going to join any baby society," and so walked off in evident ill-humor.

Therefore the new club was not formed in the Number 2 Duet Room in the West Dormitory. The Infants considered Ruth the prime mover in the club, however, and that evening she was put in the chair to preside at the informal session held in the quartette in the East Dormitory occupied by Sarah Fish and three other Infants. She was made, too, a member of the Committee on Organization which was elected to draw up a Constitution and By-Laws, and was likewise one of three to wait on Mrs. Tellingham and gain permission to use one of the small assembly rooms for meetings.

And then came up the subject of a name for the society. It was not intended that the club should be only for new scholars; for the new scholars would in time be old scholars. And the company of girls who had gathered in Sarah's room had no great or important motive in their minds regarding the association. Its object was social and for self-improvement simply.

"And so let's find a name that doesn't sound bigger than we are," said Sarah. "The Forward Club sounds very solid and is quite literary, I understand. What those Upedes stand for except raising particular Sam Hill, as my grandmother would say, I don't know. What do you say, Ruth Fielding? It's your idea, and you ought to christen it."

"I don't know that I ought," Ruth returned. "I don't believe in one person doing too much in any society."

"Give us a name. It won't hurt you if we vote it down," urged Sarah.

Now Ruth had been thinking of a certain name for the new society for some days. It had been suggested by Tom Cameron's letter to Helen. She was almost afraid to offer it, but she did. "Sweetbriars," she said, blushing deeply.

"Dandy!" exclaimed Phyllis Short.

"Goody-good!" cried somebody else. "We're at Briarwood Hall, and why not Sweetbriars?"

"Good name for initials, too," declared the practical Sarah Fish. "Make two words of it—Sweet and Briars. The 'S. B.'s '—not bad that, eh? What say?"

It was unanimous. And so the Sweetbriars were christened.



CHAPTER XV

THE NIGHT OF THE HARPOCRATES

It was from Heavy Stone that Ruth first learned of an approaching festival, although her own room-mate was the prime mover in the fete. But of late she and Helen had had little in common outside of study hours and the classes which they both attended. Since the launching of the Sweetbriars Helen had deliberately sought society among the Upedes, and especially among the quartette who dwelt next door to the chums.

"And she is going to have almond cakes. She says she has an old nurse named Babette who makes the most de-lic-i-ous almond cakes—Is that so, Ruth Fielding?"

Heavy had been enthusiastically discussing this subject with her nearest neighbor on the other side from Ruth, at the dining table. But Ruth had caught the name of "Babette" and knew that Heavy spoke of Helen Cameron.

"Is what so?" she asked the plump girl.

"Why, it's about your spoon's box from home. I told you, you know, to be sure and have the folks send you one; but Helen Cameron's got ahead of you. And whisper!" pursued Jennie Stone, in a lowered tone, "tell her not to invite too many girls to the Night of Harpocrates. Remember!"

Ruth was a bit puzzled at first. Then she remembered that Harpocrates was the Egyptian god of silence, and that his sign was a rose. The expression "sub-rosa" comes from that root, or "under the rose." It was evident that there were to be "midnight orgies" when Helen's goodies came from home.

One of the quartettes on their corridor had indulged in a fudge party after hours already, and Ruth had been invited to be present. But she found that Helen was not going, so she refused. Besides, she was very doubtful about the propriety of joining in these forbidden pleasures. All the girls broke that retiring rule more or less—or so it seemed. But Miss Picolet could give such offenders black marks if she wished, and Ruth craved a clean sheet in deportment at the end of the half.

She wondered how and when Helen proposed to hold the "supper sub-rosa"; but she would not ask. Not even when the great hamper arrived (being brought up from Lumberton by Old Dolliver, who only drove his stage every other day to Seven Oaks at this time of year) did she ask Helen a single question. Tony Foyle brought the hamper up to Duet Two in the West Dormitory and it just fitted into the bottom of Helen's closet. Heavy could not keep away from the door of the room; whenever the door was opened and Ruth raised her eyes from the table where she was at work, there was the broad, pink and white face of the fat girl, her eyes rolling in anticipation of the good things—Mary Cox declared Heavy fairly "drooled at the mouth!"

The arrival of the hamper was not unnoticed by the sharp eyes of Miss Picolet; but advised by the wily Miss Cox, Helen unpacked a certain portion of the good things and, during the afternoon, asked permission of Miss Scrimp to make tea and invite some of the girls to the duet to sample her goodies. The French teacher was propitiated by the gift of a particular almond cake, frosted, which Helen carried down to her room and begged her to accept. Helen could be very nice indeed, if she wished to be; indeed, she had no reason to be otherwise to Miss Picolet. And the teacher had reason for liking Helen, as she had shown much aptitude for the particular branch of study which Miss Picolet taught.

But although most of the girls In the West Dormitory, and some others, were asked to Helen's tea (at which Ruth likewise did the honors, and "helped pour") there was an undercurrent of joking and innuendo among certain of the visitors that showed they had knowledge of further hidden goodies which would, at fit and proper season, be divulged. Jennie Stone, gobbling almond cakes and chocolate, said to Ruth:

"If this is a fair sample of what is to be divulged upon the Night of Harpocrates, I shall fast on that day—now mind!"

When the girls had gone Ruth asked her chum, point-blank, if she proposed to have a midnight supper.

"A regular debauch!" declared Helen, laughing. "Now, don't be prim and prudish about it, Ruthie. I won't have it in here if you don't want——"

"Why not?" demanded Ruth, quickly. "Don't think of going to any other room."

"Well—I didn't know," stammered her chum. "You being such a stickler for the rules, Ruth. You know, if we should get into trouble——"

"Do you think that I would complain?" asked Ruth, proudly. "Don't you trust me any more, Helen?"

"Oh, Ruthie! what nonsense!" cried her chum, throwing her arms about Ruth Fielding's neck. "I know you'd be as true as steel."

"I did not think the suggestion could have come from your own heart, Helen," declared Ruth.

So the second night thereafter was set for the "sub-rosa supper." Slily the chums borrowed such plates and cups as the other girls had hidden away. Not a few quartette rooms possessed tea-sets, they being the joint possession of the occupants of that particular study. At retiring bell on this eventful night all things were ready, including a spirit lamp on which to make chocolate, hidden away in Helen Cameron's shirt-waist box.

Ruth and Helen went to bed after removing their frocks and shoes only and waited to hear the "cheep, cheep" of Miss Scrimp's squeaky shoes as she passed up through the house, turning down the hall lights, and then went down again. The hour for the girls to gather was set for half-past ten. First of all, however, The Fox was to go down and listen at Miss Picolet's door to make sure that she had gone to bed. Then Miss Cox was to tap softly but distinctly at the door of each invited guest as she came back to their corridor.

Meanwhile Helen and Ruth popped out of bed (it had been hard to lie there for more than an hour, waiting) and began to lay out the things. The bedspreads were laid back over the foot of each bed and the feast was laid out upon the bed-clothes. Mary Cox warned them to have the spreads ready to smooth up over the contraband goodies, should the French teacher get wind of the orgy.

"Forewarned is forearmed," urged Mary Cox. "We know what old Picolet is!"

"But 'four-armed' doesn't always mean 'fore-handed'," chuckled Jennie Stone.

"Nor quadrumanous!" snapped the Fox. "If you had four hands, Heavy, there would be little chance for any of the rest of us at Helen's party. My goodness me! how you would mow the good things away if you had four hands instead of two."

"It isn't that I'm really piggish," complained Miss Stone. "It's because I need more nourishment; there is so much of me, you know, Mary."

"And if you hadn't been stuffing yourself like a Strasburg goose all your life, there wouldn't be so much of you. Ha! it's the old story of the hen and the egg—which was here first? If you didn't eat so much you wouldn't be so big, and if you weren't so big you wouldn't eat so much."

All this, however, was said after the girls had begun to gather in Number 2 duet, and Belle Tingley, who had drawn the unlucky short toothpick, was banished to the corridor to keep watch—but with a great plateful of goodies and the "golden goblet" used in the hazing exercises, filled to the brim with hot chocolate.

"Though, if Miss Picolet is awake she'll smell the brew and will be up here instanter," declared the Fox, crossly, as Belle insisted in having her share of the drinkables as well as eatables.

Miss Picolet was forgotten in the fun and the feasting, however. There were twenty girls in the room, and they had to sit on the floor in two rows while Ruth and Helen passed out the good things. And my! they were good! Lovely chicken salad mayonnaise, served on a fresh lettuce leaf (the lettuce being smuggled in that very day in the chums' wash basket)—a little dab to each girl. There were little pieces of gherkins and capers in the mayonnaise, and Heavy reveled in this dish. The most delicious slices of pink ham between soft crackers—and other sandwiches of anchovy paste and minced sardines. These were the "solids."

Cakes, sweet crackers, Babette's cookies and lady-fingers were heaped on other plates, ready to serve.

"My!" exclaimed Lluella Fairfax, "isn't that lay-out enough to punish our poor digestive organs for a month? The last time we were caught and brought up before Mrs. Tellingham she warned us that sweetcake and pickles were as immoral as yellow-covered novels!"

"And she proved it, too," laughed the Fox. "She declared that a girl, or woman without a good digestion could not really fill her rightful place in the world and accomplish that which we are each supposed to do. Oh, the Madam always proves her point."

"And I was sick for a week afterward," sighed Lluella. "And had to take such a dose!"

At that moment, without the least forewarning, there came a smart rap on the door. The sound smote the company of whispering, laughing girls into a company of frightened, trembling culprits. They hardly dared breathe, and when the commanding rap came for a second time neither Ruth nor Helen had strength enough in their limbs to go to the door.



CHAPTER XVI

THE HAWK AMONG THE CHICKENS

Lluella and The Fox, more used to these orgies than some of the other girls, had retained some presence of mind. Their first thought—if this should prove to be the teacher or the matron—was to try and save such of the feast as could be hidden. Each girl flung up a spread to the pillows, and so hid the viands on the two beds. Then Mary Cox went quickly to the door.

The cowering girls clung to each other and waited breathlessly. Mary opened the door. There stood the abashed Belle Tingley, her plate in one hand, the gilded vase in the other, and beside her was the tiny figure of Mademoiselle Picolet, who looked very stern indeed at The Fox.

"I might have expected you to be a ringleader in such an escapade as this, Miss Cox," she said, sharply, but in a low voice. "I very well knew, Miss Cox, when the new girls came this fall that you were determined to contaminate them if you could. Every girl here will remain in her seat after prayers in the chapel to-morrow morning. Remember!"

She whipped out a notebook and pencil and evidently wrote Mary Cox's name at the head of her list. The Fox was furiously red and furiously angry.

"I might have known you would be spying on us, Miss Picolet," she said, bitingly. "Suppose some of us should play the spy on you, Miss Picolet, and should run to Mrs. Tellingham with what we might discover?"

"Go to your room instantly!" exclaimed the French teacher, with indignation. "You shall have an extra demerit for that, Miss!"

Yet Ruth, who had been watching the teacher's face intently, saw that she became actually pallid, that her lips seemed to be suddenly blue, and the countless little wrinkles that covered her cheeks were more prominent than ever before.

Mary Cox flounced out and disappeared. The teacher pointed to the chums' waste-basket and said to Bell, the unfaithful sentinel:

"Empty your plate in that receptacle, Miss Tingley. Spill the contents of that vase in the bowl. Now, Miss, to your room."

Belle obeyed. So she made each girl, as she called her name and wrote it in her book, throw away the remains of her feast, and pour out the chocolate. One by one they were obliged to do this and then walk sedately to their rooms. Jennie Stone was caught on the way out with a most suggestive bulge in her loose blouse, and was made to disgorge a chocolate layer cake which she had sought to "save" when the unexpected attack of the enemy occurred.

"Fie, for shame, Miss Stone!" exclaimed the French teacher. "That a young lady of Briarwood Hall should be so piggish! Fie!"

But it was after all the other girls had gone and Ruth and Helen were left alone with her, that the little French teacher seemed to really show her disappointment over the infraction of the rules by the pupils under her immediate charge.

"I hoped for better things of you two young ladies," she said, sorrowfully. "I feared for the influence over you of certain minds among the older scholars; but I believed you, Ruth Fielding, and you, Helen Cameron, to be too independent in character to be so easily led by girls of really much weaker wills. For one may will to do evil, or to do good, if one chooses. One need not drift.

"Miss Fielding! take that basket of broken food and go down to the basement and empty it in the bin. Miss Cameron, you may go to bed again. I will wait and see you so disposed. Alons!"

But before Ruth could get out of the room, and while Helen was hastily preparing for bed, Miss Picolet noticed something "bunchy" under Ruth's spread. She walked to the bedside and snatched back the coverlet. The still untasted viands were revealed.

"Ah-ha!" exclaimed the French teacher. "At once! into the basket with these, if you will be so kind, Miss Fielding."

Had Heavy seen those heaps of goodies thus disposed of she must have groaned in actual misery of spirit! But Helen, being quick in her preparations for bed, hopped into her own couch before Miss Picolet turned around to view that corner of the room, and with Helen under the bedclothes the hidden dainties (though she did mash some of them) were not revealed to the eye of the teacher, who stood grimly by the door as Ruth marched gravely forth with the basket of broken food.

For a minute or two Helen was as silent as Miss Picolet; then she ventured in a very small voice:

"Miss Picolet—if you please?"

"Well, Mademoiselle?" snapped the little lady.

"May I tell you that my chum Ruth had nothing to do with this infringement of the school rules? That the feast was all mine; that she merely partook of it because we roomed together? That she had nothing to do with the planning of the frolic?"

"Well?"

"I thought perhaps that you might believe otherwise," said Helen, softly, "as you made Ruth remove the—the provisions," said Helen. "And really, she isn't at all to blame."

"She cannot be without blame," declared Miss Picolet, yet less harshly than she had spoken before. "An objection from her would have stopped the feast before it began—is it not, Miss Cameron?"

"But she is not so much to blame, Miss Picolet," repeated Helen.

"Of that we shall see," returned the little lady, and waited by the door until Ruth returned from the basement. "Now to bed!" ejaculated Miss Picolet. "Wait in chapel after prayers. I really hoped the girls of my dormitory would not force me to call the attention of the Preceptress to them because of demerits this half—and I did not believe the trouble would start with two young ladies who had just arrived."

So saying, she departed. But Helen whispered Ruth, before she got in bed, to help remove the remaining goodies to the box in the closet.

"At least, we have saved this much from the wreck," chuckled Helen.

Ruth, however, was scarcely willing to admit that that the salvage would repay them for the black marks both surely had earned.



CHAPTER XVII

GOODY TWO-STICKS

To tell the truth the young ladies of the West Dormitory who attended Helen's sub-rosa supper looked pretty blue when the rest of the school filed out of chapel and left them sticking, like limpets, to their seats. Mrs. Tellingham looked just as stern as Helen imagined she could look, when she ended a whispered conference with Miss Picolet, and stood before the culprits.

"Being out of bed at all hours, and stuffing one's self with all manner of indigestible viands, is more than a crime against the school rules, young ladies," she began. "It is a crime against common sense. Besides, I take a pride in the fact that Briarwood Hall supplies a sufficient and a well-served table. Fruit at times between meals is all very well. But a sour pickle and a piece of angel cake at eleven or twelve o'clock at night would soon break down the digestive faculties of a second Samson.

"However," she added grimly, "that will bring its own punishment. I need not trouble myself about this phase of the matter. But that distinct rules of the school have been broken cannot be ignored. Each of you who were visitors at the study of Misses Fielding and Cameron last evening after hours will have one demerit to work off by extra exercises in Latin and French.

"Miss Cox!"

She spoke so sharply that The Fox hopped up quickly, knowing that she was especially addressed.

"It is reported to me by Miss Picolet that you spoke to her in a most unladylike manner. You have two demerits to work off, instead of one."

Mary Cox ruffled up instantly. She flounced into her seat and threw her book aside.

"Miss Cox," repeated the Preceptress, sharply, "I do not like your manner. Most of these girls are younger than you, and you are their leader. I believe you are all members of the Up and Doing Club. Have a care. Let your club stand for something besides infractions of the rules, I beg. And, when you deliberately insult the teacher who has charge of your dormitory, you insult me."

"I suppose I'm to be given no opportunity of answering Miss Picolet's report, or accusation?" cried Mary Fox. "I don't call it fair——"

"Silence!" exclaimed the Preceptress. "You may come to me after session this afternoon. Miss Cameron may work off a full demerit, and before the Christmas Holidays, for being the prime mover in this orgy, I am told about," said Mrs. Tellingham, bitingly. "I understand there are some extenuating circumstances in the case of Ruth Fielding. She will have one-half mark against her record—to be worked off, of course. And, young ladies, I hope this will be the last time I shall see you before me for such a matter. You are relieved for classes."

Two unexpected things happened to Ruth Fielding that morning. As they came out from breakfast she came face to face with Mary Cox, and the older girl "cut" her plainly. She swept by Ruth with her head in the air and without returning the latter's nod, and although Ruth did not care much about Mary Cox, the unkindness troubled her. The Fox had such an influence over Helen!

The second surprising happening was the receipt of a letter from Mercy Curtis, the lame girl. Dr. Davison's protege wrote:

"Dear Ruth:

"Mrs. Kimmons, next door, is trundling her twin babies—awfully homely little mites—up and down her long piazza in my wheel-chair. To what base uses have the mighty fallen! Do you know what your Uncle Jabez—Dusty Miller—has done? He had waiting for me when I got home from the sanitarium a pair of the loveliest ebony crutches you ever saw—with silver ferrules! I use 'em when I go out for a walk. Fancy old miserable, withered, crippled me going out for a walk! Of course, it's really a hobble yet—I hobble-gobble like a rheumatic goblin; but I may do better some day. The doctors all say so.

"And now I'm going to surprise you, Ruth Fielding. I'm coming to see you—not for a mere 'how-de-do-good-bye' visit; but to stay at Briarwood Hall a while. Dr. Cranfew (he's the surgeon who helped me so much) is at Lumberton and he says I can try school again. Public school he doesn't approve of for me. I don't know how they are going to 'rig' it for me, Ruth—such wonderful things happen to me all the time! But Dr. Davison says I am coming, and when he says a thing is going to happen, it happens. Like my going to the Red Mill that time.

"And isn't old Dusty Miller good to me, too? He stops to see me every Saturday when he is in town. They miss you a lot at the Red Mill, Ruthie. I have been out once behind Dr. Davison's red and white mare, to see Aunt Alviry. We just gabbled about you all the time. Your pullets are laying. Tell Helen 'Hullo!' for me. I expect to see you soon, though—that is, if arrangements can be made to billet me with somebody who doesn't mind having a Goody Two-Sticks around.

"Now, good-bye, Ruthie, "From your fidgetty friend, "MERCY CURTIS."

This letter delighted Ruth, and she went in search of Helen to show it to her. The chums were due at their first recitation in a very few moments. Ruth found Helen talking with Mary Cox and Belle Tingley on the steps of the building in a recitation room in which Ruth and Helen were soon to recite. Ruth heard Belle say, earnestly:

"I believe it, too. Miss Picolet wasn't downstairs in her room at all. When she caught me she came from upstairs, and that's how I didn't give any warning. I didn't expect her from that direction and I was looking downstairs."

"She had been warned, all right," said the Fox, sharply. "It's plain enough who played the traitor. Nasty little cat!"

"I believe you," said Belle. "And she only got half a demerit. They favored her, of course."

"But why any demerit at all, if she was a spy for Miss Picolet?" demanded Helen, in a worried tone.

"Pshaw! that's all for a blind," declared the Fox.

And then all three saw Ruth at the bottom of the steps. The Fox and Belle Tingley turned away without giving Ruth a second glance, and went into the building. But Helen smiled frankly on Ruth as her chum approached, and slipped an arm within her own:

"What have you got there, Ruthie?" she demanded, seeing the open letter.

"It's from Mercy. Read it when you get a chance," Ruth whispered, thrusting it into her chum's hand as they went in. "It's just as you said—Dr. Davison is going to bring it about. Mercy Curtis is coming to Briarwood, too."

Helen said nothing at all about The Fox and her room-mate. But Ruth saw that the Upedes—especially those who had been caught in the French teacher's raid on Duet Number 2—whispered a good deal among themselves, and when they looked at Ruth they did not look kindly.

After recitation, and before dinner, several of the girls deliberately cut her as Mary Cox had. But Helen said nothing, nor would Ruth speak first. She saw plainly that The Fox had started the cabal against her. It made Ruth feel very unhappy, but there was nothing she could do to defend herself.



CHAPTER XVIII

THE MYSTERY AGAIN

The organization of the Sweetbriars had gone on apace. Two general meetings had been held. Every new-comer to the school, who had entered the Junior classes, saving Helen Cameron, had joined the new society. The committee on constitution and by-laws was now ready to report and this very afternoon Ruth and two other girls waited on Mrs. Tellingham to ask permission to hold social meetings in one of the assembly rooms on stated occasions, as the other school societies did.

The trio of Sweetbriars had to wait a little while in the hall outside the library door, for Mrs. Tellingham was engaged. Mary Cox came out first and as she passed Ruth she tossed her head and said:

"Well, are you here to tattle about somebody else?"

Ruth was stricken speechless, and the girls with her asked wonderingly what the older girl had meant.

"I—I do not know just what she means," gasped Ruth, "only that she means to hurt me if she can."

"She's mad with you," said one, "because you started the S. B.'s and wouldn't join her old Upede Club.

"That's it," said the other. "Don't you mind, Miss Fielding."

Then the maid told them they could go into the library. Mrs. Tellingham looked very grave, and sat at her desk tapping the lid thoughtfully with a pencil. This was one occasion when Dr. Tellingham was not present. The countenance of the Preceptress did not lighten at all when she saw Ruth come in.

"What is it, Miss Fielding?" she asked in her brusque way.

Ruth stated the desire of the new society briefly, and she was positive before Mrs. Tellingham replied at all that the mention of the Sweetbriars did not please the lady.

"You girls will fill your time so full, with societies and leagues, and what all, that there will be little space for studies. I am half sorry now that I ever allowed any secret, or social clubs, to be formed at Briarwood. But while we have the Forward Club, I cannot well deny the right of other girls to form similar societies.

"But I am not pleased with the Up and Doing Club. I understand that every girl but one reported out of her room after retiring bell last evening, in the West Dormitory, was a member of the Up and Doings—and the other girl was you, Miss Fielding!" she added sternly. "And you are a member of this new organization— What do you call it? The 'S. B.'s,' is it?"

"The Sweetbriars," said Ruth bravely. "And I am sorry I did anything to bring any cloud upon the name of the new club. I promise you, Mrs. Tellingham, that I will do nothing in the future to make you sorry that you sanctioned the formation of our society."

"Very well! Very well!" said the Preceptress, hastily. "You may have the same rights, and under the same conditions, that the older clubs have. And now, Miss Fielding, stop here a moment, I have another matter to speak to you about."

The other girls went away and Ruth, somewhat troubled by the manner of Mrs. Tellingham, waited her pleasure. The Preceptress took up a letter from her desk and read it through again.

"Dr. Davison you know, Ruth," she said, quietly. "He and your uncle, Mr. Jabez Potter, have arranged to send here to school a lame girl named Curtis———"

"My uncle!" gasped Ruth. "O, I beg your pardon, Mrs. Tellingham. But are you sure it is my uncle who is sending Mercy Curtis?"

"With Dr. Davison—yes," the Preceptress said, in some surprise. "They have equally charged themselves with her expenses at Briarwood—if she can remain here. You know her, of course?"

"Helen and I have talked of her almost every day, Mrs. Tellingham," said Ruth warmly. "She is very quick and sharp. And she is much improved in disposition from what she used to be."

"I hear you speak of her so kindly, with pleasure, Miss Fielding," said the head of the school. "For it opens the way to a suggestion that Dr. Davison makes. He wishes Mercy Curtis to room with you."

"With Helen and me!" cried Ruth, in delight. "Of course, I slept in Mercy's room all the time she was at the Red Mill last summer, and we got on nicely together."

"But you do not know how Miss Cameron will receive the suggestion of having a third girl in your small room?"

"Oh, Helen is so kind!" Ruth cried. "I do not believe she will object. And she is sorry for Mercy."

"I know you have been Helen's constant companion. Do you think you have been as good friends as you were when you came to Briarwood, Ruth?" asked Mrs. Tellingham, with sharpness.

"Helen! Oh, I hope so, Mrs. Tellingham!" cried Ruth, in great distress. "I am sure I love her just the same—and always shall."

"But she evidently finds her friends among the Upedes. Why did she not join this new society that you have started?"

"I—I did not mean to start it without her," stammered Ruth. "It was really only my suggestion. The other Infants took it up——"

"But you named it?"

"I did suggest the name," admitted Ruth.

"And you did not join the Up and Doing Club with your chum."

"No, Mrs. Tellingham. Nor did I join the F. C.'s. I did not like the manner in which both societies went about making converts. I didn't like it the very first day we came."

"Miss Picolet, your French teacher, told me something about Mary Cox meeting the stage and getting hold of you two girls before you had reached Briarwood at all."

"Yes, ma'am."

"By the way," said the Preceptress, her brow clouding again and the stern look coming back into her face that had rested on it when Ruth had first entered the room, "you had met Miss Picolet before you arrived at the school?"

"She spoke to us in the stage—yes, ma'am."

"But before that—you had seen her?"

"Ye-es, ma'am," said Ruth, slowly, beginning to suspect that Mrs. Tellingham's curiosity was no idle matter.

"Where?"

"On the Lanawaxa—the boat coming down the lake, Mrs. Tellingham."

"Miss Picolet was alone aboard the boat?"

Ruth signified that she was.

"Did you see her speaking with anybody?"

"We saw a man speak to her. He was one of the musicians. He frightened Miss Picolet. Afterward we saw that he had followed her out upon the wharf. He was a big man who played a harp."

"And you told this to your school-fellows after you became acquainted here?"

Mrs. Tellingham spoke very sternly indeed, and her gaze never left Ruth's face. The girl from the Red Mill hesitated but an instant. She had never spoken of the man and Miss Picolet to anybody save Helen; but she knew that her chum must have told all the particulars to Mary Cox.

"I—I believe we did mention it to some of the girls. It impressed us as peculiar—especially as we did not know who Miss Picolet was until after we were in the stage-coach with her."

"Then you are sure you have not been one who has circulated stories among the girls about Miss Picolet—derogatory to her, I mean?"

"Oh, Mrs. Tellingham! Never!" cried Ruth, earnestly.

"Do you know anything about this silly story I hear whispered that the marble harp out there on the fountain was heard to play the night you and Miss Cameron arrived here?"

"Oh!" ejaculated Ruth.

"I see you know about it. Did you hear the sound?"

"Ye-es, ma'am," admitted Ruth.

"I will not ask you under what circumstances you heard it; but I do ask if you have any knowledge of any fact that might explain the mystery?"

Ruth was silent for several moments. She was greatly worried; yet she could understand how this whole matter had come to Mrs. Tellingham's knowledge. Mary Cox, angry at Miss Picolet, had tried to defame her in the mind of the Preceptress.

Now, what Ruth knew was very little indeed. What she suspected regarding a meeting between the French teacher and the man with the harp, at the campus fountain, was an entirely different matter. But Mrs. Tellingham had put her question so that Ruth did not have to tell her suspicions.

"I really know nothing about it, Mrs. Tellingham," she said, finally.

"That is all. I do not believe you—or Miss Cameron—would willingly malign an innocent person. I have known Miss Picolet some time, and I respect her. If she has a secret sorrow, I respect it. I do not think it is nice to make Miss Picolet's private affairs a subject for remark by the school.

"Now, we will leave that. Sound Miss Cameron about this Mercy Curtis. If you girls will take her in, she shall come on trial. It lies with you, and your roommate, Miss Fielding. Come to me after chapel to-morrow and tell me what you have decided."

And so Ruth was dismissed.



CHAPTER XIX

THE TRIUMVIRATE

Mercy Curtis came in a week. For Helen of course was only too delighted to fall in with Mrs. Tellingham's suggestion. Duet Number 2, West Dormitory, was amply large enough for three, and Ruth gave up her bed to the cripple and slept on a couch. Helen herself could not do too much for the comfort of the newcomer.

Dr. Davidson and Dr. Cranfew came with her; but really the lame girl bore the journey remarkably well. And how different she looked from the thin, peaked girl that Ruth and Helen remembered!

"Oh, you didn't expect to see so much flesh on my bones; did you?" said Mercy, noting their surprise, and being just as sharp and choppy in her observations as ever. "But I'm getting wickedly and scandalously fat. And I don't often have to repeat Aunt Alviry's song of 'Oh, my back and oh, my bones!'"

Mercy went to bed on her arrival. But the next day she got about in the room very nicely with the aid of two canes. The handsome ebony crutches she saved for "Sunday-Best."

Ruth arranged a meeting of the Sweetbriars to welcome the cripple, and Mercy seemed really to enjoy having so many girls of her own age about her. Helen did not bring in many members of the Upedes; indeed, just then they all seemed to keep away from Duet Two, and none of them spoke to Ruth. That is, none save Jennie Stone. The fat girl was altogether too good-natured—and really too kind at heart—to treat Ruth Fielding as Jennie's roommates did.

"They say you went and told Picolet we were going to have the party in your room," Heavy said to Ruth, frankly, "and that's how you got out of it so easily. But I tell them that's all nonsense, you know. If you'd wanted to make us trouble, you would have let Helen have the party in our room, as she wanted to, and so you could have stayed home and not been in it at all."

"As she wanted to?" repeated Ruth, slowly. "Did Helen first plan to have the supper in your quartette?"

"Of course she did. It was strictly a Upede affair—or would have been if you hadn't been in it. But you're a good little thing, Ruth Fielding, and I tell them you never in this world told Picolet."

"I did not indeed, Jennie," said Ruth, sadly.

"Well, you couldn't make The Fox believe that. She's sure about it, you see," the stout girl said. "When Mary Cox wants to be mean, she can be, now I tell you!"