"Well," Edith Phelps insisted, "this Ruth Fielding was so petted at that
backwoods' school where she has been that I suppose there will be no
living in the same house with her."

Edith was one of the older sophomores--quite old, indeed, to the eyes of
the plump girl who was listening. But the latter smiled quietly,
nevertheless, as she listened to the sophomore's speech.

"We shall have to take her down a peg or two, of course. It's bad enough
to have the place littered up with a lot of freshies----"

"Just as we littered it up last year at this time, Edie," suggested May,
with a chuckle.

"Well," Edith said, laughing, "if I don't put this Ruth Fielding, the
authoress, in her place in a hurry, it won't be because I sha'n't try."

"Have a care, dearie," admonished one quiet girl who had not spoken
before. "Remember the warning we had at commencement."

"About what?" demanded two or three.

"About that Rolff girl, you know," said the thoughtful girl.

"Oh! I know what you mean," Edith said. "But that was a warning to the
sororities."

"To everybody," put in May.

"At any rate," Dora Parton said, "Dr. Milroth forbade anything in the
line of hazing."

"Pooh!" said Edith. "Who mentioned hazing? That's old-fashioned. We're
too ladylike at Ardmore, I should hope, to _haze_--my!"

"'My heye, blokey!'" drawled May.

"You are positively coarse, Miss MacGreggor," Dora said, severely.

"And Edie is so awfully emphatic," laughed the Scotch girl. "But she
will have to take it out in threatenings, I fear. We can't haze this
Fielding chit, and that's all there is to it."

"Positively," said the quiet girl, "that was a terrible thing they did
to Margaret Rolff. She was a nervous girl, anyway. Do you remember her,
May?"

"Of course. And I remember being jealous because she was chosen by the
Kappa Alpha as a candidate. Glad _I_ wasn't one if they put all their
new members through the same rigmarole."

"That is irreverent!" gasped Edith. "The Kappa Alpha!"

"I see Dr. Milroth took them down all right, all right!" remarked
another of the group. "And now none of the sororities can solicit
members among either the sophs or the freshies."

"And it's a shame!" cried Edith. "The sorority girls have such fun."

"Half murdering innocents--yes," drawled May. "That Margaret Rolff was
just about scared out of her wits, they say. They found her wandering
about Bliss Island----"

"Sh! We're not to talk of it," advised Edith