ess by appearances," Ruth admitted slowly. "I
presume _you_, too, were judged that way."

"What do you mean, Miss Fielding?" asked Rebecca, more mildly.

"When you came here to Ardmore you made a first impression. We all do,"
Ruth said.

"Yes," Rebecca admitted, with a slight curl of her lip. She was
naturally a proud-looking girl, and she seemed actually haughty now. "I
was mistaken for _you_, I believe."

Ruth laughed heartily at that.

"I should be a good friend of yours," she said. "It was a great sell on
those sophomores. They had determined to make poor little me suffer for
some small notoriety I had gained at boarding school."

"I never went to boarding school," snapped Rebecca. "I never was
_anywhere_ till I came to college. Just to our local schools. I worked
hard, let me tell you, to pass the examinations to get in here."

"And why don't you let your mind broaden and get the best there is to be
had at Ardmore?" Ruth demanded, quickly. "The girls misunderstand you. I
can see that. We freshmen have got to bow our heads to the will of the
upper classes. It doesn't hurt--much," and she laughed again.

"Do you think I am wearing this old tam because I am stubborn?" demanded
the other girl, again with that fierceness that seemed so strange in one
so young.

"Why--aren't you?"

"No."

"Why do you wear it, then?" asked Ruth, wonderingly.

"_Because I cannot afford to buy another!_"

Rebecca Frayne said this in so tense a voice that Ruth was fairly
staggered. The girl of the Red Mill gazed upon the other's flaming face
for a full minute without making any reply. Then, faintly, she said:

"I--I didn't understand, Rebecca. We none of us do, I guess. You came
here in such style! That heavy trunk and those bags----"

"All out of our attic," said the other, sharply. "Did you think them
filled with frocks and furbelows? See here!"

Ruth had already noticed the packages of papers piled along one wall of
the room. Rebecca pointed to them.

"Out of our attic, too," she said, with a scornful laugh that was really
no laugh at all. "Old papers that have lain there since the Civil War."

"But, Rebecca----"

"Why did I do it?" put in the other, in the same hard voice. "Because I
was a little fool. Because I did not understand.

"I didn't know just what college was like. I never talked with a girl
from college in my life. I thought this was a place where only rich
girls were welcome."

"Oh, Rebecca!" cried