“Hush!” begged Ruth.  “Don’t let her think we’re laughing at her.”

“Miss Scrimp’s very strict about candles and oil lamps,” said Nettie.  “We use them a lot in the South.”

“That old house of yours in ‘So’th Ca’lina’ must be a funny old place, Nettie,” said Heavy.

“It isn’t ours,” Nettie said.  “The cotton plantation belongs to Aunt Rachel.  She was born on it—­the Merredith Place.  We usually go there for the early summer, and then either come No’th, or into the mountains of Virginia until cool weather.  My own dear old Louisiana home isn’t considered healthy for us during the extreme hot weather.  It is too damp and marshy.”

    “’Way down Souf in de land ob cotton—­
      Cinnamon seed an’ sandy bottom!’”

hummed Heavy.  “Oh!  I wish I was in Dixie—­right now.”

“Wait till my Aunt Rachel comes up here,” Nettie promised.  “I’m going to beg an invitation for you girls to visit Merredith.”

“But it will be hot weather, then,” said Heavy; “and I don’t want to miss Light-house Point.”

“And I’m just about crazy to get back to Silver Ranch,” said Ann Hicks.

“Me for Cliff Island,” cried Belle Tingley.  “No land of cotton for mine, this summer.”

“When is your aunt coming, Nettie?” asked Ruth.

“To see you graduate, my dear,” replied the Southern girl, smiling.  “And wait till she meets you, Ruthie Fielding!  She’ll near about love you to death!”

“Oh, everybody loves Ruth.  Why shouldn’t they?” cried Belle.

“But everybody doesn’t give her a fortune, as Nettie’s Aunt Rachel did,” laughed Heavy.

Ruth wished they would not talk so much about that money; but, of course, she could not stop them.  She made no rejoinder, but looked across the room and out at the upper pane of one of the long windows.  It was deep dusk now without.  The evening was clear, with a rising wind moaning through the trees on the campus.

Tony Foyle, the old gardener and general handy man, was only now lighting the lamps along the walks.

“There’s a funny red star,” Ruth said to Helen.  “It can’t be that Mars is rising there.”

“Where?” queried her chum, lazily, scarcely raising her eyes to look.  Helen was not interested in astronomy.

Nobody else was attracted by the red spark Ruth saw.  Against the dusky sky it grew swiftly A new star——­

“It is fire!” gasped Ruth, softly, rising on trembling limbs. “And it is in the West Dormitory!”

CHAPTER IX

THE DEVOURING ELEMENT

Not even Helen heard Ruth’s whispered words.  She went on calmly with her supper when her chum arose from her seat.

Ruth quickly controlled herself.  The word “fire” would start a panic on the instant, although both dormitories were across the campus from the main hall.

The girl of the Red Mill erased from her countenance all expression of the fear which gripped her; but about her heart she felt a pressure like that of a tight band.  Her knees actually knocked together; she was thankful they were invisible just then.