her violin--and loved it. Ruth was practicing singing all
the time she could spare, for she was already a prominent member of the
Glee Club. When the girl of the Red Mill sang, Ann Hicks felt her heart
throb and the tears rise in her eyes. She loved Ruth's kind of music; yet
she, herself, could not carry a tune.

Mercy was strictly attentive to her own books. Mercy was a bookworm--nor
did she like being asked questions about her studies. Those first few
weeks Ann Hicks's recitations did not receive very high marks.

Often some of the girls who did not know her very well laughed because she
carried books belonging to the primary grade. Ann Hicks had many studies
to make up that her mates had been drilled in while they were in the
lower classes.

One day at mail time (and in a boarding school that is a most important
hour) Ann received a very tempting-looking box by parcel post. She had
been initiated into the meaning of "boxes from home." Even Aunt Alvirah
had sent a box to Ruth, filled with choicest homemade dainties.

Ann expected nothing like that. Uncle Bill would never think of it--and he
wouldn't know what to buy, anyway. The box fairly startled the girl from
Silver Ranch.

"What is it? Something good to eat, I bet," cried Heavy, who was on hand,
of course. "Open it, Ann--do."

"Come on! Let's see what the goodies are," urged another girl, but who
smiled behind her hand.

"I don't know who would send _me_ anything," said Ann, slowly.

"Never mind the address. Open it!" cried a third speaker, and had Ann
noted it, she would have realized that some of the most trying girls in
the school had suddenly surrounded her.

With trembling fingers she tore off the outside wrapper without seeing
that the box had been mailed at the local post office--Lumberton!

A very decorative box was enclosed.

"H-m-m!" gasped Heavy. "Nothing less than fancy nougatines in _that_."

She was aiding the heartless throng, but did not know it. It would have
never entered Heavy's mind to do a really mean thing.

Ann untied the narrow red ribbon. She raised the cover. Tissue paper
covered something very choice----?

_A dunce cap._

For a moment Ann was stricken motionless. The girls about her shouted. One
coarse, thoughtless girl seized the cap, pulled it from the box, and
clapped it on Ann Hicks's black hair.

The delighted crowd shouted more shrilly. Heavy was thunderstruck. Then
she sputtered:

"Well! I never would have bel