Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall: or, Solving the Campus Mystery

"Oh, you must see the Preceptress. She's just as nice as she can be, is Mrs. Tellingham. You'll see her right after supper?"

"I presume so," Ruth said.

"Then, I tell you what," said Madge. "I'll wait for you and take you to the Forward Club afterwards. We have an open meeting this evening. Mrs. Tellingham will be there – she is a member, you know – so are the other teachers. We try to make all the new girls feel at home."

She nodded to them both brightly and went out. Ruth turned to her chum with a smile.

"Isn't that nice of her, Helen?" she said. "We are getting on famously – Why, Helen! what's the matter?" she cried.

Helen's countenance was clouded indeed. She shook her head obstinately.

"We can't go with her, Ruth," she declared.

"Can't go with her?"

"No."

"Why not, pray?" asked Ruth, much puzzled.

"We can't go to that Forward Club," said Helen, more emphatically.

"Why, my dear!" exclaimed Ruth. "Of course we must. We haven't got to join it. Maybe they wouldn't ask us to join it, anyway. You see, it's patronized by the teachers and the Preceptress herself. We'll be sure to meet the very nicest girls."

"That doesn't follow," said Helen, somewhat stubbornly. "Anyway, we can't go, Ruth."

"But I don't understand, dear," said the puzzled Ruth.

"Why, don't you see?" exclaimed Helen, with some exasperation. "I told Miss Cox we'd go with her."

"Go where?"

"To her club. They hold a meeting this evening, too. You know, she said there was rivalry between the two big school clubs. Hers is the Upedes."

"Oh! the Up and Doings," laughed Ruth. "I remember."

"She said she would wait for us after we get through with Mrs. Tellingham and introduce us to her friends."

"Well!" gasped Ruth, with a sigh. "We most certainly cannot go to both. What shall we do?"

CHAPTER VI

THE ENTERING WEDGE

Since Ruth Fielding had first met Helen Cameron – and that was on the very day the former had come to the Red Mill – the two girls had never had a cross word or really differed much on any subject. Ruth was the more yielding of the two, perhaps, and it might be that that was why Helen seemed so to expect her to yield now.

"Of course, Ruthie, we can't disappoint Miss Cox," she said, with finality. "And after she was so kind to us, too."

"Are you sure she did all that out of simple kindness, Helen?" asked the girl from the Red Mill, slowly.

"Why! what do you mean?"

"Aunt Alviry says one should never look a gift-horse in the mouth," laughed Ruth.

"What do you mean?" demanded her chum.

"Why, Helen, doesn't it seem to you that Mary Cox came out deliberately to meet us, and for the purpose of making us feel under obligation to her?"

"For pity's sake, what for?"

"So that we would feel just as you do – that we ought if possible to attend the meeting of her society?"

"I declare, Ruth Fielding! How suspicious you have become all of a sudden."

Ruth still laughed. But she said, too: "That is the way it has struck me, Helen. And I wondered if you did not see her attention in the same light, also."

"Why, she hasn't asked us to join the Upedes," said Helen.

"I know. And neither has Miss Steele – "

"You seem to have taken a great fancy to that Madge Steele," interrupted Helen, sharply.

"I think she is nice looking – and she was very polite," said Ruth, quietly.

"Well, I don't care," cried Helen. "Miss Cox has shown us much more kindness. And I promised for us, Ruth. I said we'd attend her club this evening."

"Well," said her chum, slowly. "It does look as though we would have to go with Miss Cox, then. We'll tell Miss Steele – "

"I believe your head has been turned by that Madge Steele because she's a Senior," declared Helen, laughing, yet not at all pleased with her friend. "And the F. C.'s are probably a fussy crowd. All the teachers belonging to the club too. I'd rather belong to the Upedes – a real girls' club without any of the teachers to boss it."

Ruth laughed again; but there was no sting in what she said: "I guess you have made up your mind already that the Up and Doing Club is the one Helen Cameron wants to join."

"And the one Ruth Fielding must join, too!" declared Helen, in her old winning way, slipping her arm through Ruth's arm. "We mustn't go separate ways, Ruthie."

"Oh, Helen!" cried Ruth. "Don't talk like that. Of course we will not. But let us be careful about our friendships here."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," said Ruth, smiling, "that we must be careful about joining any crowd of girls until we know just how things are."

"Well," said Helen, dropping her arm and walking to the other end of the room for no reason whatsoever, for she walked back again, in a moment, "I don't see why you are so suspicious of Mary Cox."

"I don't know that I am," laughed Ruth. "But we have no means of comparison yet – "

A mellow bell began to ring from some other building – probably in the tower of the main building of Briarwood Hall.

"There!" ejaculated Helen, in some relief. "That must be to announce supper."

"Are you ready, Helen?" asked Ruth.