oodness, Ruth! you are so funny."

"Then laugh at me," responded Ruth, smiling. "I don't mind."

"Pshaw!" said Jennie. "There's no getting ahead of you. You're just like
the little kid I heard of who was entertaining some other little girls at
a nursery tea. 'My little sister is only five months old,' says one little
girl, 'and she has two teeth.'

"'My little sister is only six months old,' spoke up another guest, 'and
she's got three teeth.'

"The other kiddie was silent for a moment; she wanted to be polite, but
she couldn't let the others put it over her like that! So finally she
bursts out with:

"'Well, my little sister hasn't any teef yet; but when she _does_ have
some, they're goin' to be gold ones!' Couldn't get ahead of her--and
nobody can get the best of _you_, Ruthie Fielding! You've always an answer
ready."

At Mrs. Sadoc Smith's, Amy Gregg had just as little to do with the three
older girls as she possibly could; but she remained friends with Curly.
She was his confidant, and although Curly considered Ruth about the
finest girl "who ever walked down the pike," as he expressed it, he felt
in no awe of Amy Gregg and treated her more as he would another boy.

All was not plain sailing for Ruth in either her studies or in the writing
of the scenario for "The Heart of a Schoolgirl." The coming examinations
in all branches would be difficult, and unless she obtained a certain
average in all, Ruth could not expect a diploma.

A diploma from Briarwood Hall was an entrance certificate to the college
in which she and Helen hoped to continue their education the following
autumn. And Ruth did not want to spend her summer in making up conditions.
She wished to graduate in her class with a high grade.

It was a foregone conclusion in her mind that Mercy Curtis was to bear off
the highest honor. Nor had she forgotten that she must invent (if nobody
else could) a way for Mercy to speak the principal oration on graduation
day.

Her powers of invention, however, were taxed to their utmost just now as
she wrote the scenario of the picture drama. Before Mr. Hammond and the
Alectrion Company left Lumberton, Ruth was able to get into town with the
draft of the first part of the play, and read it to Mr. Hammond.

Miss Hazel Gray was present at the reading, and Ruth had given that
pretty young girl a very good part indeed in the new film.

"You _dear_!" whispered Hazel, her arms around Ruth, and speaking to her
soft