rd something----"

She stopped and looked knowingly at Ruth and Helen. The former flushed
as she remembered the man in the red waistcoat who played the harp
aboard the steamboat. But Helen seemed to have forgotten the incident,
for she paid no attention to Mary's unfinished suggestion.

It worried Ruth, however. She heartily wished that her chum had said
nothing to the Cox girl about the man who played the harp and his
connection with the little French teacher.

CHAPTER VIII

THE MARBLE HARP

The social meeting of the Up and Doing Club lasted less than an hour.
It was quite evident that it had been mainly held for the introduction
of Ruth Fielding and her chum into the society of the Briarwood girls.
Those gathered in the assembly room did not number any Seniors, but
were all of the Junior grade, and all older than Ruth and Helen.
"Primes" were not allowed by Mrs. Tellingham to join any of the
class-governed societies.

In spite of the fact that Ruth suspected Mary Cox of deliberately
throwing herself in the way of Helen and she on their arrival at the
school, with the sole object of getting them pledged to this society,
the girl from the Red Mill could not fail to appreciate the
good-natured attempts of the Upedes to make them both feel at home in
their new surroundings. They _must_ be grateful for that.

Nor were they urged at this time to join the club. At least, nobody
said more to Ruth about joining than had the stout girl, Jennie Stone,
on their way to this meeting. The party broke up in such good season,
that it was scarcely dark when the chums left the room in the dining
hall and strolled back to their dormitory with their new friends. The
lamps around the campus were being lighted by a little old Irishman,
who wore a wreath of short, gray whiskers and hair about his face--a
regular frame. His long upper lip and his chin were shaven, and this
arrangement gave him a most comical appearance.

"You're late again to-night, Tony," Jennie Stone remarked, as she and
Ruth came down the steps of the dining hall together.

The little Irishman backed down the short flight of steps he carried,
with a groan. He had just lighted the final lamp of the series that
surrounded the campus.

"And well I might be--well I might be," grumbled the man. "'Tis me
needs fower pair of hands, instead of wan pair, and as many legs as a
cinterpig." Tony evidently meant _centipede_. "'Tis 'Tony, here!' and
'Tony,