business proposition, pure and simple, with him.

In the first place, nobody had ever thought of just this kind of moving
picture. The producer would be in the field with a new idea. In addition,
the drama would be looked for all over the country by the friends of the
pupils, past and present, of Briarwood Hall. The girls themselves
appearing in some of the scenes would add to the interest their parents,
friends, and the graduates of the Hall, were bound to take in the
production.

To Ruth, nervous and overworked after the finishing of the scenario, the
days of waiting until Mr. Hammond read and pronounced judgment on the
play, were hard indeed to endure. No matter how much confidence her
friends--even Mrs. Tellingham--had in her ability to succeed, Ruth was not
at all sure she had written up to the mark.

Try as she might she began to fall behind in her recitation marks during
these days of waiting. Her nervousness was enhanced by the doubts she felt
regarding her general standing in her classes.

Mrs. Tellingham talked cheerfully in chapel about "our graduating class;"
but some of the girls who were working with a view to receiving their
diplomas in June would never be able to reach the high mark necessary for
Mrs. Tellingham to allow them those certificates.

There would be a fringe of girls standing at the back of the class who,
although never appearing at Briarwood Hall another term, could not win the
roll of parchment which would enter them in good standing in any of the
women's colleges. Ruth did not want to be among those who failed.

She worried about this a good deal; she could not sleep at night; and her
cheeks grew pale. She worked hard, and yet sometimes when she reached the
classroom she felt as though her head were a hollow drum in which the
thoughts beat to and fro without either rhyme or reason.

Ruth Fielding was a perfectly healthy girl, as well as an athletic one.
But in a time of stress like this the very healthiest person can easily
and quickly break down. "I feel as though I should fly!" is an expression
often heard from nervous and overwrought schoolgirls. Ruth wished that she
might fly--away from school and study and scenarios and sullen girls like
Amy Gregg.

One evening when she came back to Mrs. Sadoc Smith's with a strapful of
books to study before bedtime, Ruth saw Curly Smith by the shed door busy
with some fishing tackle. Ruth's pulses leaped. Fishing! She had not
thrown a hook in