Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall: or, Solving the Campus Mystery. Emerson Alice B.

girls were waiting here for the coach, and they greeted Mary Cox when she jumped down, vociferously.

      "Well, Mary Cox! I guess we know what you've been up to," exclaimed one who seemed older than the other girls in waiting.

      "Did you rope any Infants, Mary?" cried somebody else.

      "'The Fox' never took all that long walk for nothing," declared another.

      But Mary Cox paid her respects to the first speaker only, by saying:

      "If you want to get ahead of the Upedes, Madge Steele, you Fussy Curls had better set your alarm clocks a little earlier."

      Ruth and Helen were climbing out of the old coach now, and the girl named Madge Steele looked them over sharply.

      "Pledged, are they?" she said to Mary Cox, in a low tone.

      "Well! I've been riding in the Ark with them for the last three miles. Do you suppose I have been asleep?" returned Miss Cox, with a malicious smile.

      Ruth and Helen did not distinctly hear this interchange of words between their new friend and Madge Steele; but Ruth saw that the latter was a very well dressed and quiet looking girl – that she was really very pretty and ladylike. Ruth liked her appearance much more than she did that of Mary Cox. But the latter started at once into the cedar plantation, up a serpentine walk, and Helen and Ruth, perforce, went with her. The other girls stood aside – some of them whispering together and smiling at the newcomers. The chums could not help but feel strange and nervous, and Mary Cox's friendship seemed of value to them just then.

      Ruth, however, looked back at the tall girl whose appearance had so impressed her. The coach had not started on at once. Old Dolliver did everything slowly. But Ruth Fielding saw a hand beckoning at the coach window. It was the hand of Miss Picolet, the French teacher, and it beckoned Madge Steele.

      The latter young lady ran to the coach as it lurched forward on its way. Miss Picolet's face appeared at the window for an instant, and she seemed to say something of importance to Madge Steele. Ruth saw the pretty girl pull open the stage-coach door again, and hop inside. Then the Ark lumbered out of view, and Ruth turned to follow her chum and Mary Cox up the winding Cedar Walk.

      CHAPTER V

      "THE DUET"

      Helen, by this time, having recovered her usual self-possession, was talking "nineteen to the dozen" to their new friend. Ruth was not in the least suspicious; but Mary Cox's countenance was altogether too sharp, her gray eyes were too sly, her manner to the French teacher had been too unkind, for Ruth to become greatly enamored of the Junior. It did really seem very kind of her, however, to put herself out in this way for two "Infants."

      "How many teachers are there?" Helen was asking. "And are they all as little as that Miss Picolet?"

      "Oh, she!" ejaculated Mary Cox, with scorn. "Nobody pays any attention to her. She's not liked, I can tell you."

      "Why, she seemed nice enough to us – only not very friendly," said Helen, slowly, for Helen was naturally a kind-hearted girl.

      "She's a poverty-stricken little foreigner. She scarcely ever wears a decent dress. I don't really see why Mrs. Tellingham has her at the school at all. She has no friends, or relatives, or anybody that knows her – "

      "Oh, yes she has," said Helen, laughing.

      "What do you mean?" inquired Mary Cox, suspiciously.

      "We saw somebody on the boat coming over to Portageton that knew Miss Picolet."

      "Oh, Helen!" ejaculated Ruth, warningly.

      But it was too late, Mary Cox wanted to know what Helen meant, and the story of the fat man who had played the harp in the boat orchestra, and who had frightened the French teacher, and had afterward talked so earnestly with her on the dock, all came out in explanation. The Junior listened with a quiet but unpleasant smile upon her face.

      "That's just what we've always thought about Miss Picolet," she said. "Her people must be dreadfully common. Friends with a ruffian who plays a harp on a steamboat for his living! Well!"

      "Perhaps he is no relative or friend of hers," suggested Ruth, timidly. "Indeed, she seemed to be afraid of him."

      "He's mixed up in her private affairs, at least," said Mary, significantly. "I never could bear Miss Picolet!"

      Ruth was very sorry that Helen had happened upon this unfortunate subject. But her chum failed to see the significance of it, and the girl from the Red Mill had no opportunity of warning Helen. Mary Cox, too, was most friendly, and it seemed ungrateful to be anything but frank and pleasant with her. Not many big girls (so thought both Ruth and Helen) would have put themselves out to walk up to Briarwood Hall with two Infants and their baggage.

      Through breaks in the cedar grove the girls began to catch glimpses of the brown old buildings of Briarwood Hall. Ivy masked the entire end of one of the buildings, and even ran up the chimneys. It had been cut away from the windows, and they showed brilliantly now with the descending sun shining redly upon them.

      "It's a beautiful old place, Helen," sighed Ruth.

      "I believe you!" agreed her chum, enthusiastically.

      "It was originally a great manor house. That was the first building where the tower is," said Mary Cox, as they came out at last upon the more open lawn that gave approach to this side of the collection of buildings, which had been more recently built than the main house. They were built around a rectangular piece of turf called the campus. This, however, the newcomers discovered later, for they came up in the rear of the particular dormitory building in which Mary declared their room was situated.

      "You can go to the office afterwards," she explained, kindly. "You'll want to wash and fix up a little after traveling so far. It always makes one so dirty."

      "This is a whole lot better than the way poor Tom was received at his school; isn't it?" whispered Helen, tucking her arm in Ruth's as they came to the steps of the building.

      Ruth nodded. But there were so many new things to see that Ruth had few words to spare. There were plenty of girls in sight now. It seemed to the girl from the Red Mill as though there were hundreds of them. Short girls, tall girls, thin girls, plump girls – and the very plumpest girl of her age that Ruth had ever seen, stood right at the top of the steps. She had a pretty, pink, doll-like face which was perpetually a-smile. Whereas some of the girls – especially the older ones – stared rather haughtily at the two Infants, this fat girl welcomed them with a broadening smile.

      "Hello, Heavy," said Mary Cox, laughing. "It must be close to supper bell, for you're all ready, I see."

      "No," said the stout girl. "There's an hour yet. Are these the two?" she added, nodding at Ruth and Helen.

      "I always get what I go after," Ruth heard Mary say, as they whisked in at the door.

      In the hall a quiet, pleasant-faced woman in cap and apron met them.

      "This is Helen Cameron and Ruth Fielding, Miss Scrimp," said Mary. "Miss Scrimp is matron of our dormitory, girls. I am going up, Miss Scrimp, and I'll show them to their duet."

      "Very well, Miss Cox," said the woman, producing two keys, one of which she handed to each of the chums. "Be ready for the bell, girls. You can see Mrs. Tellingham after supper."

      Ruth stopped to thank her, but Mary swept Helen on with her up the broad stairway. The room the chums were to occupy (Mr. Cameron had made this arrangement for them) was up this first flight only, but was at the other end of the building, overlooking the campus. It seemed a long walk down the corridor. Some of the doors stood open, and more girls looked out at them curiously as they pursued their way.

      Mary was talking in a low voice to Helen now, and Ruth could not hear what she said. But when they stopped at the end of the corridor, and Helen fitted her key into the lock of the door, she said:

      "We'd be delighted, Miss Cox. Oh, yes! Ruth and I will both come."

      Mary went away whistling and they heard her laughing and talking with other girls who had come out into the corridor before the chums were well in their own room. And what a delightful place it seemed to