ennie. "I see she's wearing the same dress she traveled in."

"I wager she misses her maid," sighed Helen. "Can't dress without one, I
s'pose."

But there were too many other girls to watch and to comment on for the
trio to give much attention to Rebecca Frayne. Ruth, however, said, with
a little laugh:

"I must feel some interest in her. Her initials are the same as mine."

"And her arrival certainly took the curse off yours, my dear," Jennie
agreed. "Edie Phelps and her crowd were laying for you and no mistake."

"I wonder if we shouldn't eschew all slang now that we have come to
Ardmore?" Helen suggested demurely.

"You set the example then, my lady!" cried Heavy.

Miss Comstock, the very severe looking senior, sat at the table at which
the Briarwood trio of freshmen found their numbers; but Miss Frayne was
at the housekeeper's table. There were ten or twelve girls at each table
and throughout the meal a pleasant hum of voices filled the room.

Ruth and Helen, not to mention their fleshy chum, were soon at their
ease with their neighbors; nor did Miss Comstock prove such a bugaboo as
they feared. Although the senior was a particularly silent girl, she had
a pleasant smile and was no wet blanket upon the enjoyment of the
dinner. At least, she did not serve as a wet blanket upon Jennie Stone.
The fleshy girl's appetite betrayed the fact that she had been stinted
at noon, and that a diet of string beans was scarcely a satisfactory
one.

As they left the dining-room and came out into the wide, well-lighted
entrance hall of the house, a lady just entering bowed to Jennie Stone.

"There she is!" groaned the fleshy girl. "Caught in the act!"

"Who is she, Heavy?" demanded Helen, in an undertone.

"She looks nice," observed Ruth.

"Miss Cullam. She's the one that advised the string beans," declared
Jennie out of the corner of her mouth. Then she added, most cordially:
"Oh! how do you do! These are my two chums from Briarwood--Ruth Fielding
and Helen Cameron. Miss Cullam, girls."

The teacher, who was rather elderly, but very brisk and neat, if not
wholly attractive, approached smiling.

"You will meet me in mathematics, young ladies," she said, shaking hands
with the two introduced freshmen. "And how are you to-night, Miss Stone?
Have you stuck to your vegetable diet, as I advised?"

Heavy made her jolly, round face seem as long as possible, and groaned
hollowly.

"Oh, Miss Cullam!" she said, "I believe I