“’Sweetbriars come here, one by one—­
But one wide river to cross! 
There’s lots of work, but plenty of fun,
With one wide river to cross!’”

“Altogether!” cried Heavy.  “All join in!”

“The dear old chant!” said Helen, with a happy sigh.

Ruth had already taken up the chorus again, and her rich, full-throated tones filled the room: 

    “’Sweetbriars all-l! 
      One wide River of Knowledge! 
      Sweetbriars all-l! 
      One wide river to cross!’”

“Once more!” exclaimed the girl from Montana, who could not herself sing a note in harmony, but liked to hear the others.  The chant continued: 

    “’Sweetbriars joining, two by two—­
        There’s one wide river to cross! 
      Some so scared they daren’t say ‘Booh!’
        To the one wide river to cross!”

“That was us, Ruthie!” broke off Helen, laughing.  “Remember how scared we were when we walked up the old Cedar Walk with The Fox, here, and didn’t know whether we were going to be met with a brass band or a ticket to the guillotine?”

The Fox, otherwise Mary Cox, suddenly turned red.  Ruth hastened to smooth over her chum’s rather tactless speech, for Mary had been a different girl at that time from what she was now, and the memory of the hazing she had visited on Ruth and Helen annoyed her.

“And what did meet us?” cried Ruth, dramatically.  “Why, a poor, emaciated creature standing at the steps of this old West Dormitory, complaining that she would starve before supper if the bell did not sound soon.  You remember, Heavy?”

“And I feel that way now,” said Jennie Stone in a hollow tone.  “I don’t know what makes me so, but I am continually hungry at least three times a day—­and at regular intervals.  I must see a physician about it.”

“Aren’t you afraid of the effect of eating so much, Jennie?” asked Helen, gently.

“What’s that?  Is there a new disease?” asked the fleshy girl, trying to express fear—­which she never could do successfully in any such case.  Jennie had probably never been ill in her life save as the immediate result of over-indulgence in eating.

“No, my dear,” said Ruth Fielding’s chum.  “But they do tell me that eating too much may make one fat.”

“Horrors!” ejaculated Jennie.  “I can’t believe you.  Then that is what is the matter with me!  I thought I looked funny in the mirror.  I must be getting a wee bit plump.”

“Plump!”

“Hear her!”

“She’s the girl who went up in the balloon and came down ‘plump!’”

The shouts that greeted Heavy’s seriously put remark did not disturb the fleshy girl at all.  “That is exactly the trouble,” she went on, quite placidly.  “And it cost me half a dollar yesterday.”

“What’s that?” asked somebody, curiously.

“Where?” asked another girl.

“In chapel.  Didn’t you see me trying to crawl through between the two rows of seats?  And I got stuck!”