. What do you want her for, Ruthie?"

"I don't want her," said Ruth promptly.

"Well! of all the girls!" gasped Helen. "Then _why_ ask Mrs. Tellingham to
let her come here?"

"Because she ought to be with somebody who will look out for her," Ruth
said.

She did not tell her mates about it, but Ruth had heard some whispers
regarding the origin of the fire that had burned down the West Dormitory,
and she was afraid Amy would be suspected.

The older girl had reason to know that Mrs. Tellingham had questioned Amy
regarding the candle she had obtained from Miss Scrimp's store. The girl
had emphatically denied having left the candle burning on leaving her room
to go to supper on the fatal evening.

The girls had begun, after a time, to ask questions about the origin of
the fire. They knew it had started on the side of the corridor where Amy
Gregg had roomed. They might soon suspect the truth.

"If they do, good-bye to all little Gregg's peace of mind!" Ruth thought,
for she knew just how cruel girls can be, and Amy did not readily make
friends.

Although Ruth and her room-mates tried to make the flaxen-haired girl feel
at home at Mrs. Sadoc Smith's, Amy remained sullen, and seemed afraid of
the older girls. She was particularly unpopular, too, because she was the
only girl who had refused to write home to tell of the fire and ask for a
contribution to the dormitory fund.

Amy Gregg seemed to be afraid to talk of the fire and refused to give even
a dollar toward the rebuilding of the dormitory. "It isn't _my_ fault that
the old thing burned down. I lost all my clothes and books," she
announced. "I think the school ought to pay _me_ some money, instead."

After saying this before her room-mates at Mrs. Smith's, all but Ruth
dropped her.

"Sullen little thing," said Helen, with disgust.

"Not worth bothering with," rejoined Ann.

The only person to whom Amy Gregg seemed to take a fancy was Mrs. Smith's
scapegrace grandson, Henry. Henry was the wildest boy there was anywhere
about Briarwood Hall. He was always getting into trouble, and his
grandmother was forever chastising him in one way or another.

Nobody in the neighborhood knew him as "Henry." He was called "that Smith
boy" by the grown folk; by his mates he was known as "Curly."

Ruth felt that Curly never would have developed into such a mischievous
and wayward youth had it not been for his grandmother.

When a little boy Henry had come to live with Mrs