such a good time before in the saloon of the lake
steamer, _Minnetonka_.

Suddenly music began somewhere about the boat and the young folk began
to get restive. Some ran for their skates again, for the idea was to
remain near the steamer for a while and listen to the music before
going back to shore. The music was a piano, guitar, violin, and harp,
and when Ruth heard it and recognized the latter instrument she was
suddenly reminded of Miss Picolet and the strange harpist who (she
firmly believed) had caused the startling sound at the fountain.

"Let's go and see who's playing," she whispered to Helen, who had clung
close to her ever since they had come aboard the steamboat. And as Tom
was on the other side of his sister, he went with them into the forward
part of the boat.

"Well, what do you know about _that_?" demanded Tom, almost before the
girls were in the forward cabin. "Isn't that the big man with the red
waistcoat that frightened that little woman on the _Lanawaxa_? You
know, you pointed them out to me on the dock at Portageton, Helen?
Isn't that him at the harp?"

"Oh! it is, indeed!" ejaculated his sister. "What a horrid man he is!
Let's come away."

But Ruth was deeply interested in the harpist. She wondered what
knowledge of, or what connection he had with, the little French
teacher, Miss Picolet. And she wondered, too, if her suspicions
regarding the mystery of the campus--the sounding of the harpstring in
the dead of night--were borne out by the facts?

Had this coarse fellow, with his pudgy hands, his corpulency, his
drooping black mustache, some hold upon Miss Picolet? Had he followed
her to Briarwood Hall, and had he made her meet him behind the fountain
just at that hour when the Upedes were engaged in hazing Helen and
herself? These thoughts arose in her mind again as Ruth gazed
apprehensively at the ugly-looking harpist.

Helen pulled her sleeve and Ruth was turning away when she saw that the
little, piglike eyes of the harpist were turned upon them. He smiled
in his sly way and actually nodded at them.

"Sh! he remembers us," whispered Helen. "Oh, do come away, Ruth!"

"He isn't any handsome object, that's a fact," muttered Tom. "And the
cheek of him--nodding to you two girls!"

After the excitement of the accident on the lake our friends did not
feel much like skating until it came time to go back to the landing.
Mr. Hargreaves was out on the ice with those students of th