t my
brother is all right again?" and she kissed the girl of the Red Mill
warmly.

Belle and Lluella looked a bit surprised at Mary Cox's manifestation of
friendship for Ruth; but they did not yet know all the particulars of
their schoolmates' adventures at Silver Ranch.

Heavy was hurrying about, kissing everybody indiscriminately, and of
course performing this rite with Ruth at least twice.

"I'm so tickled to see you all, I can't tell!" she laughed. "And you're
all looking fine, too. But it does seem a month, instead of a week, since
I saw you."

"My! but you are looking bad yourself, Heavy," gibed Helen Cameron,
shaking her head and staring at the other girl. "You're just fading away
to a shadow."

"Pretty near," admitted Heavy. "But the doctor says I shall get my
appetite back after a time. I was allowed to drink the water two eggs were
boiled in for lunch, and to-night I can eat the holes out of a dozen
doughnuts. Oh! I'm convalescing nicely, thank you."

The girls who had reached the school first welcomed Jane Ann quite as
warmly as they did the others. There was an air about them all that seemed
protecting to the strange girl.

Other girls were walking up and down the Cedar Walk, and sometimes they
cast more than glances at the eight juniors who were already such
friends. Madge had immediately been swallowed up by a crowd of seniors.

"Say, Foxy! got an infant there?" demanded one girl.

"I suppose Fielding has made her a Sweetbriar already--eh?" suggested
another.

"The Sweetbriars do not have to fish for members," declared Helen, tossing
her head.

"Oh, my! See what a long tail our cat's got!" responded one of the other
crowd, tauntingly.

"The double quartette! There's just eight of them," crowed another. "There
certainly will be something doing at Briarwood Hall with those two
roomsful."

"Say! that's right!" cried Heavy, eagerly, to Ruth. "You, and Helen, and
Mercy, and Jinny, take that quartette room on our other side. We'll just
about boss that dormitory. What do you say?"

"If Mrs. Tellingham will agree," said Ruth. "I'll ask her."

"But you girls will be 'way ahead of me in your books," broke in Jane Ann.

"We needn't be ahead of you in sleeping, and in fun," laughed Heavy,
pinching her.

"Don't be offish, Miss Jinny," said Helen, calling her by the title that
the cowboys did.

"And my name--my dreadful, dreadful name!" groaned the western girl.

"I tell you!" exclaimed Ruth, "