ared at last
that he only came socially--there was no need of medical attendance.
The cripple could not go to recitations without her crutches, but
sometimes in the room she walked with only Ruth's strong arm for
support. She was getting rosy, too, and began to take exercise in the
gymnasium.

"I'll develop my biceps, if my back is crooked and my legs queer," she
declared. "Then, when any of those _Miss Nancy_ Seniors make fun of me
behind my back, I can punch 'em!" for there were times when Mercy's
old, cross-grained moods came upon her, and she was not so easily borne
with.

Perhaps this fact was one of the things that drove the wedge deeper
between Ruth and Helen. Ruth would never neglect the crippled girl.
She seldom left her in the room alone. Mercy had early joined the
Sweetbriars, and Ruth and she went to the frequent meetings of that
society together, while Helen retained her membership in the Up and
Doing Club and spent a deal of her time in the quartette room next door.

Few of the girls went home for Thanksgiving, and as Mercy was not to
return to Cheslow then, the journey being considered too arduous for
her, Ruth decided not to go either. There was quite a feast made by
the school on Thanksgiving, and frost having set in a week before,
skating on Triton Lake was in prospect. There was a small pond
attached to the Briarwood property and Ruth tried Helen's skates there.
She had been on the ice before, but not much; however, she found that
the art came easily to her--as easily as tennis, in which, by this
time, she was very proficient.

For the day following Thanksgiving there was a trip to Triton Lake
planned, for that great sheet of water was ice-bound, too, and a small
steamer had been caught 'way out in the middle of the lake, and was
frozen in. The project to drive to the lake and skate out to the
steamer (the ice was thick enough to hold up a team of horses, and
plenty of provisions had been carried out to the crew) and to have a
hot lunch on the boat originated in the fertile brain of Mary Cox; but
as it was not a picnic patronized only by the Upedes, Mrs. Tellingham
made no objection to it. Besides, it was vacation week, and the
Preceptress was much more lenient.

Of course, Helen was going; but Ruth had her doubts. Mercy could not
go, and the girl of the Red Mill hated to leave her poor little
crippled friend alone. But Mercy was as sharp of perception as she was
of tongue. When Hele