h the heavens
fall!"

"And still be natural?" chuckled Jennie. "Impossible!"

"Her best foot forward--one's best foot forward." Mary Cox kept repeating
Helen's remark while the other girls chattered. Mary had a talent for
drawing. "Say!" she suddenly exclaimed. "I could make a dandy poster with
that for a text."

"With what for a text?" somebody asked.

"'Putting One's Best Foot Forward,'" declared Mary Cox, and suddenly
seizing charcoal and paper, she sketched the idea quickly--a smartly
dressed up-to-date Briarwood girl with her right foot advanced--and that
foot, as in a foreshortened photograph--of enormous size.

The poster took with the girls immensely. There was something chic about
the figure, and the face, while looking like nobody in particular, was a
composite of several of the girls. At least, it was an inspiration on the
part of Mary Cox, and when Mrs. Tellingham saw it, she approved.

"We'll just send this 'Big Foot Girl' broadcast," cried Helen, who was
proud that her spoken word had been the inspiration for Mary's clever
cartoon. "Come on! we'll have it stamped on our stationery, and write to
everyone we know bespeaking their best attention when they see the poster
in their vicinity."

"And we'll have new postcards made of Briarwood Hall, with Mary's figure
printed on the reverse," Sarah Fish said.

They sent a proof of the poster to Mr. Hammond, and to his billing of
"The Heart of a Schoolgirl" he immediately added "The Briarwood Girl with
Her Best Foot Forward." Locally, during the next few weeks, this poster
became immensely popular.

The campaign of advertising did not end with Mary's poster--no, indeed! In
every way they could think of the girls of Briarwood Hall spread the
tidings of the forthcoming release of the school play.

Lumberton's advertising space was plastered with the Briarwood Girl and
with other billing weeks before the film could be seen. As every moving
picture theatre in the place clamored for the film, Mr. Hammond had
refused to book it with any. The Opera House was engaged for three days
and nights, a high price for tickets asked, and it was expected that a
goodly sum would be raised for the dormitory right at home.

However, before the picture of "The Heart of a Schoolgirl" came to town,
something else happened in the career of Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill
which greatly influenced her future.

CHAPTER XXIV

"SEEING OURSELVES AS OTHERS SEE US"

"I want