ly, "I believe I have you to thank for much further consideration from
Mr. Hammond. And you have given me a delightful part in this play you are
writing. What a really wonderful child you are Ruth Fielding!"

Ruth thought that she was scarcely a child. But she only said: "I am glad
you like the part. I meant it for you."

"I know. Mr. Hammond told me that you insisted on my playing the part of
Eve Adair. And, oh! what about that nice boy, Thomas Cameron? Are he and
his sister well? I received a lovely box of sweets from Thomas after I
went back to the city that time."

"He is well, I believe," said Ruth, gravely. "He is not far from here, you
know; he attends the Seven Oaks Military Academy."

"Oh! so he does. Maybe we shall go that way," said Hazel Gray, carelessly.
"It would be lots of fun to see him again. Give my love to his sister."

"Yes, Miss Gray," Ruth returned seriously. "I will tell Helen."

She really liked Hazel Gray, and wished to see her get ahead. And it was
through her acquaintanceship with Hazel that Ruth had made a friend of
Mr. Hammond. But it annoyed Ruth that the actress should continue to be so
friendly with Tom Cameron.

She thought no good could come of it Tom Cameron had always seemed such a
seriously inclined boy, in spite of his ready fun and cheerfulness. To
have him show such partiality for a girl so much older than himself,
really a grown woman, as Hazel Gray was, disturbed Ruth.

She said nothing to her chum about it. If Helen was not worried about her
twin's predilection for the moving picture actress, it did not become Ruth
to worry.

Ruth went back to Briarwood, encouraged to go on with the writing of the
drama. From Mr. Hammond's fertile mind had come several helpful
suggestions. The plot of the play was very intimately connected with the
history of Briarwood. There was included in its scenes a "Masque of the
Marble Harp," in which the whole school was to be grouped about the
fountain in the sunken garden.

The marble figure of Harmony, or Poesy, or whatever it was supposed to
represent, was to come to life in the picture and strum the strings of the
lyre which it held. This was a trick picture and Mr. Hammond had explained
to Ruth just how it was to be made.

The legend of the marble harp, which had been kept alive by succeeding
classes of Briarwood girls for the purpose of hazing "infants," came in
very nicely now in Ruth's story. And the arrangement of this trick picture