agreed to do as they were
told--upon this single point, at least.

"There certainly are enough of them left in town so that she can buy
one," Jennie Stone said.

"Goodness!" snapped Helen. "If _my_ complexion can stand such a silly
color, _hers_ certainly can."

Before the out-of-doors concert was over, news of this rebellion on the
part of a single freshman had run through the crowd like a breath of
wind over ripe wheat. It almost broke up the "roar."

As the last verse of the last song was ended and the company began to
disperse, the freshmen themselves, and the sophomores as well, stared at
Rebecca Frayne in open wonder. She started for her room, which was in
Dare Hall on the same corridor as that of the three girls from
Briarwood, and Ruth and Helen and Jennie were right behind her.

"That certainly is an awful tam," groaned Jennie. "What do you suppose
makes her wear it, anyway? Let alone the trouble----"

She broke off. Miss Dexter, the first senior who had spoken to Ruth and
Helen coming over from the railway station on the auto-bus, stopped the
strange girl whose initials were the same as those of the girl of the
Red Mill.

"Will you tell me, please, why you are wearing that tam-o'-shanter?"
asked Miss Dexter.

Rebecca Frayne's head came up and a spot of vivid red appeared in either
of her sallow cheeks.

"Is that _your_ business?" she demanded, slowly.

"Do you know that I am a senior?" asked Miss Dexter, levelly.

"I don't care if you are two seniors," returned Rebecca Frayne, saucily.

Miss Dexter turned her back upon the freshman and walked promptly away.
The listeners were appalled. None of them cared to go forward and speak
to Rebecca Frayne.

"Cracky!" gasped Helen. "She's an awful spitfire."

"She's an awful chump!" groaned Jennie. "The seniors won't do a thing to
her!"

But nothing came at once of Rebecca's refusal to obey the seniors'
command regarding tam-o'-shanters. It was known, however, that the
executive committees of both the senior and junior classes met that next
night and supposedly took the matter up.

"Oh, no! They don't haze any more at Ardmore," said Jennie, shaking her
head. "But just wait!"

CHAPTER XII

RUTH IS NOT SATISFIED

Ruth Fielding was not at all satisfied. Not that her experiences in
these first few weeks of college were not wholly "up to sample," as the
slangy Jennie Stone remarked. Ruth was getting personally all out of
college life that she