Ruth Fielding At College: or, The Missing Examination Papers

"You had the nightmare," said Helen.

"Not a chance! But I went up two pounds and a half– or else the scales were crazy!"

"Girls!" exclaimed Ruth, suddenly. "Do you know it is snowing?"

"My! I never expected that," cried Helen, as a feathery flake lit upon the very point of her pretty nose. "Ow!"

"Well, we'd better go on, I guess," Ruth observed. "Put your best foot forward, please, Miss Jennie."

"I don't know which is my best foot now," complained the heavy girl. "They are both getting lame."

"We'll just have to make you sit down on the ice while we drag you," announced Helen, increasing the length of her stroke.

"Not much you won't!" exclaimed Jennie Stone, "I'm cold enough as it is."

"Shall we take off our skates and walk over the island, girls?" suggested Ruth. "That will save some time and more than a little work for Heavy."

"Don't worry about me," put in Jennie. "I need the exercise. And walking would be worse than skating, I do believe."

It was snowing quite thickly now; but the shore of the island was not far away. The trio hugged it closely in encircling the wooded and hilly piece of land.

"Say!" Helen cried, "we're not the only girls out here to-day."

"Huh?" grunted Jennie, head down and skating doggedly.

"See there, Ruth!" called the black-eyed girl.

Ruth turned her face to one side and looked under the shade of her hand, which she held above her eyes. There was a figure moving along the shore of Bliss Island just abreast of them.

"It's a girl," she said. "But she's not skating."

"Who is it? A freshie?" asked Jennie, but little interested.

Ruth did not reply. She seemed wonderfully interested by the appearance of the girl on shore. She fell behind her mates while she watched the figure.

The snow was increasing; and that with the abruptly rising island, furnished a background for the strange girl which threw her into relief.

At first Ruth was attracted only by her figure. She could not see her face.

"Who can she be? Not one of the girls at Dare Hall – "

This idea spun to nothingness very quickly. No! The figure ashore reminded Ruth Fielding of nobody whom she had seen recently. The feeling, however, that she knew the person grew.

The snow blew sharply into the faces of the skating girls; but she on shore was somewhat sheltered from the gale. The wind was out of the north and west and the highland of the island broke the zest of the gale for the strange girl.

"And yet she isn't strange – I know she isn't," murmured Ruth Fielding, casting another glance back at the figure on the shore.

"Come on, Ruth! Do hurry!" cried Helen, looking back. "Even Heavy is beating you."

Ruth quickened her efforts. The strange girl disappeared, mounting a path it seemed toward the center of the island. Ruth, head bent and lips tightly closed, skated on intent upon her mystifying thoughts.

The trio rounded the island at last. They got the wind somewhat at their backs and on a long slant made for the boathouse landing. It was growing dusk, but there was a fire at the landing that beckoned them on.

"Glad it isn't any farther," Helen panted. "This snow is gathering so fast it clogs one's skates."

"Oh, I must be losing pounds!" puffed Jennie Stone. "I bet none of my clothes will fit me to-morrow. I shall have to throw them all away."

"Oh, Heavy!" giggled Helen. "That lovely new silk?"

"Oh – well – I shall take that in!" drawled Jennie.

"I've got it!" exclaimed Ruth, in a most startling way.

"Goodness me! are you hurt?" demanded Helen.

"What you got? A cramp?" asked Jennie, quite as solicitous.

"I know now who that girl looked like," declared Ruth.

"What girl?" rejoined Helen Cameron. "The one over yonder, on the other side of the island?"

"Yes. She looks just like that Maggie who came to the mill, Helen. You remember, don't you? The girl I left to help Aunt Alvirah when I came to college."

"Well, for the land's sake!" said Jennie Stone. "If she's up there at the Red Mill, how can she possibly be down here, too? You're talking out of order, Miss Fielding. Sit down!"

CHAPTER XIV

"OFT IN THE STILLY NIGHT"

Ruth Fielding could not get that surprising, that almost unbelievable, discovery out of her mind.

It seemed ridiculous to think that girl could be Maggie, "the waif," she had seen on Bliss Island. Aunt Alvirah had written Ruth a letter only a few days before and in it she said that Maggie was very helpful and seemed wholly content.

"Only," the little old housekeeper at the Red Mill wrote, "I don't know a mite more about the child now than I did when Mr. Tom Cameron and our Ben brought her in, all white and fainty-like."

The girls had to hurry on or be late to dinner. But the very first thing Ruth did when she reached their rooms in Dare Hall was to look up Aunt Alvirah's letter and see when it was dated and mailed.

"It's obvious," Ruth told herself, "that Maggie could have reached here almost as soon as the letter if she had wished to. But why come at all? If it was Maggie over on that island, why was she there?"

Of course, these ruminations were all in private. Ruth knew better than to take her two close friends into her confidence. If she did the mystery would have been the chief topic of conversation after dinner, instead of the studies slated for that evening.

An incident occurred, however, at dinner which served to take Ruth's mind, too, from the mystery. There were a number of seniors and juniors quartered at Dare Hall. Nor were all the seniors table-captains at dinner.

This evening the dining hall had filled early. Perhaps the brisk air and their outdoor exercise had given the girls sharper appetites than usual. It had the three girls from Briarwood. They were wearied after their long skate around the island and as ravenous as wolves. They could scarcely wait for Miss Comstock, at the head of their particular table, to begin eating so they might do so, too.

And just at this moment, as the pleasant bustle of dinner began, and the lightly tripping waitresses were stepping hither and yon with their trays, the door opened and a single belated girl entered the dining hall.

As though the entrance of this girl were expected, a hush fell over the room. Everybody but Jennie looked up, their soup spoons poised as they watched Rebecca Frayne walk down the long room to her place at the housekeeper's table.