I would not have bought a new tam myself!"

"You wouldn't?"

"No, Miss Dexter. Nor would a great many of us freshmen. We believed the
order had a deeper significance--and it _had_. It helped our class get
together. We are combined now, we are a social body. And I believe that
if I took this matter up with Rebecca's class, and explained just her
situation to them (which, of course, I do not want to do), the freshmen
as a whole would back me in a revolt against the upper classes."

"You're pretty sure of that, Ruth Fielding, are you?" demanded the
senior.

"Yes, I am. We'd all refuse to wear the new tams. You seniors and
juniors would have a nice time sending us all to Coventry, wouldn't you?
If you didn't want to eat with us, you'd all go hungry for a long time
before the freshmen would do as Rebecca foolishly did."

Miss Dexter laughed at that. And then she hugged Ruth.

"I believe you are a dear girl, with a lot of good sense in your head,"
she said. "But you must come before our executive committee and talk to
them."

"Oh, dear! Beard the lions in their den?" cried Ruth.

"Yes, my dear. I cannot be your spokesman."

Ruth found this a harder task than she had bargained for; but she went
that same evening to a hastily called meeting of the senior committee.
Perhaps Miss Dexter had done more for her than she agreed, however, for
Ruth found these older girls very kind and she seemingly made them
easily understand Rebecca's situation without being obliged to say in
just so many words that the girl was actually poverty-stricken.

And it was probable, too, that Ruth Fielding helped herself in this
incident as much as she did her classmate. The members of the older
classes thereafter gave the girl of the Red Mill considerably more
attention than she had previously received. Ruth began to feel surprised
that she had so many warm friends and pleasant acquaintances in the
college, even among the sophomores of Edith Phelps' stamp. Edith Phelps
found her tart jokes about the "canned-drama authoress" falling rather
flat, so she dropped the matter.

Older girls stopped on the walks to talk to Ruth. They sat beside her in
chapel and at other assemblies, and seemed to like to talk with her.
Although Ruth did not hold an office in her own class organization, yet
she bade fair to become soon the most popular freshman at Ardmore.

Ruth was perfectly unconscious of this fact, for she had not a spark of
vanity in her make-up