. Tellingham to rearrange their duo and
quartette rooms so that as many as possible of the West Dormitory girls
could be housed with them.

"We're all willing to double up," said Sarah Fish, who had become leader
of the East Dormitory. "I'm perfectly willing to divide my bureau drawers,
book-shelves, table and bed with any of you orphans. Poor things! It must
be awful to be burned out."

"Some of us haven't much to put in bureau drawers or on bookshelves," said
Helen, inclined to be lugubrious. "I--I haven't a decent thing to wear
but what I have on right now. I unpacked my trunk clear to the very bottom
layer."

However, as a rule, selfish considerations did not enter into the girls'
discussion of the fire. When they looked at the ruined building, they saw
mainly the loss to the school. A loyalty is bred in the pupils of such an
institution as Briarwood Hall, which is only less strong than love of home
and country.

A new structure to house a hundred girls would cost a deal of money.

There was no studying done before breakfast the morning after the fire;
and at the tables the girls' tongues ran until Miss Brokaw declared the
room sounded like a great rookery she had once disturbed near an old
English rectory.

"I positively cannot stand it, young ladies," declared the nervous
teacher, who had been up most of the night. "Such continuous chatter is
enough to crack one's eardrums."

The girls really were too excited to be very considerate, although they
did not mean to offend Miss Brokaw. If the window or an outer door was
opened, the very tang of sour smoke on the air set their tongues off again
about the fire.

Once in chapel, however, a rather solemn feeling fell upon them. The
teacher whose turn it was to read, selected a psalm of gratitude that
seemed to breathe just what was in all their hearts. It gave thanks for
deliverance from the terrors of the night and those of the noonday, for
the Power that encircles poor humanity and shelters it from harm.

"We, too, have been sheltered," thought Ruth and her friends. "We have
been guarded from the evil that flyeth by night and from the terror that
stalketh at noonday. Surely God is our Keeper and Strength. We will not be
afraid."

When Helen played one of the old, old hymns of the Church she brought such
sweet tones from the strings of the violin that Miss Picolet hushed her
accompaniment, surprised and delighted. And when they sang, Ruth
Fielding's rich and