“Nothing is filling,” replied the stout girl.  “Just think, almost the whole universe is filled with just atmosphere—­and your head, Lluella.”

“That’s not pretty, dear,” remarked The Fox, pinching Heavy.  “Don’t be nasty to your playmates.”

“Well, I’ve got to eat,” groaned Heavy.  “If you knew how long it seemed from luncheon to supper time——­”

Despite all Ruth Fielding could do, the girl from Silver Ranch felt herself a good deal out of this nonsense and joviality.  Ann could not talk the way these girls did.  She felt serious when she contemplated her future in the school.

“I’d—­I’d run away if it wasn’t for Uncle Bill,” she whispered to herself, looking out of the window at the hundreds of girls parading the walks about the campus.

Almost every two girls seemed chums.  They walked with their arms about each other’s waists, and chattered like magpies.  Ann Hicks wanted to run and hide somewhere, for she was more lonely now than she had ever been when wandering about the far-reaching range on the Montana ranch!

CHAPTER VII

“A HARD ROW TO HOE”

Since Ruth Fielding had organized the S.B.’s, or Sweetbriars, there had been little hazing at Briarwood Hall.  Of course, this was the first real opening of the school year since that auspicious occasion; but the effect of the new society and its teachings upon the whole school was marked.

Rivalries had ceased to a degree.  The old Upedes, of which The Fox had been the head, no longer played their tricks.  The Fox had grown much older in appearance, if not in years.  She had had her lesson.

Belle and Lluella and Heavy were not so reckless, either.  And as the S.B.’s stood for friendship, kindness, helpfulness, and all its members wore the pretty badge, it was likely to be much easier for those “infants” who joined the school now.

Ann Hicks was bound to receive some hard knocks, even as Mrs. Tellingham had suggested.  But “roughing it” a little is sometimes good for girls as well as boys.

In her own western home Ann could have held her own with anybody.  She was so much out of her usual element here at Briarwood that she was like a startled hare.  She scented danger on all sides.

Her roommates could not always defend her, although even Mercy, the unmerciful, tried.  Ann Hicks was so big, and blundering.  She was taller than most girls of her age, and “raw-boned” like her uncle.  Some time she might really be handsome; but there was little promise of it as yet.

When the principal started her in her studies, it was soon discovered that Ann, big girl though she was, had to take some of the lessons belonging to the primary grade.  And she made a sorry appearance in recitation, at best.

There were plenty of girls to laugh at her.  There is nothing so cruel as a schoolgirl’s tongue when it is unbridled.  And unless the victim is blessed with either a large sense of humor, or an apt brain for repartee, it goes hard with her.