, and at Ardmore
especially. We shall hear from the faculty about it before the matter is
done with."

"Well, we're not doing it," scoffed Jennie. "And that Rebecca Frayne is
behaving like a chump."

"But how she does stick to that awful tam!" groaned Helen.

"Stubborn as a mule," agreed Jennie.

"I saw her with another hat on to-day," said Ruth, reflectively.

"That's so! It was the one she wore the day she arrived," Helen said
quickly. "A summer hat. I wonder what she did bring in that trunk,
anyway? She has displayed no such charming array of finery as I
expected."

Ruth did not discuss this point. She was more interested in the state of
Rebecca's mind, though, of course, there was not much time for her to
give to anything but her studies and regular duties now, for as the term
advanced the freshmen found their hours pretty well filled.

Scrub teams for certain indoor sports had been made up, and even Jennie
Stone took up the playing of basketball with vigor. She was really
losing flesh. She kept a card tacked upon her door on which she set down
the fluctuations of her bodily changes daily. When she lost a whole
pound in weight she wrote it down in red ink.

Their activities kept the three friends well occupied, both physically
and mentally. Yet Ruth Fielding could not feel wholly satisfied or
content when she knew that one of her mates was in trouble. She had
taken an interest in Rebecca Frayne at the beginning of the semester;
yet of all the freshmen Rebecca was the one whom she knew the least.

"And that poor girl needs somebody for a friend--I feel it!" Ruth told
herself. "Of course, she is to blame for the situation in which she now
is. But for that very reason she ought to have somebody with whom to
talk it over."

Ruth determined to be that confidant of the girl who seemed to wish no
associate and no confidant. She began to loiter in the corridors between
recitation hours and at odd times. Whenever she knocked on Rebecca's
door there was no reply. Other girls who had tried it quickly gave up
their sympathetic attentions. If the foolish girl wished for no friends,
let her go her own way. That became the attitude of the freshman class.
Of course, the sophomores followed the lead of the seniors and the
juniors, having as little to do with the unfortunate girl as possible.

But the day and hour came at last when Ruth chanced to be right at hand
when Rebecca Frayne came in and unlocked her room door. H