Already Mrs. Tellingham and the doctor had been informed by the girls’ executive committee of the sums both actually raised by the girls, and promised, toward the dormitory fund.  It had warranted the good lady’s signing contracts for the removal of the wreckage of the burned building, at least.  The way would soon be cleared for beginning work on a new structure.

Offers of money came pouring in from the parents interested in the success of Briarwood Hall; and some of the checks already received by Mrs. Tellingham were for substantial sums.  But this proposal of Ruth’s for all the girls to help in the increase of the fund, pleased Mrs. Tellingham more than anything else.

She read Ruth’s brief sketch of the plot she had originated for the school play, and approved it.  “The Heart of a Schoolgirl” was forthwith put into shape to show Mr. Hammond when he came to Lumberton, that event being expected daily.

About this time the girls of Briarwood Hall were so excited and interested over the moving picture idea that they scarcely had time for their studies and usual work.

CHAPTER XIV

AT MRS. SADOC SMITH’S

Mrs Tellingham, wise in the ways of girls, had foreseen the excitement and disturbance in the placid current of Briarwood life, and made plans following the fire to counteract the evil influences of just this disturbance.  The girls who hoped to graduate from the school in the coming June must have more quiet—­must have time to study and to think.

The younger girls, if they fell behind in their work, could make it up in the coming terms.  Not so Ruth Fielding and her friends, so the wise school principal had distributed them, after the destruction of the West Dormitory, in such manner that they would be free from the hurly-burly of the general school life.

A few, like Mercy Curtis (who could not easily walk back and forth from any outside lodging), Mrs. Tellingham kept in her own apartment.  But the greater number of the graduating class was distributed among neighbors who—­in most cases—­were not averse to accepting good pay for rooms which could only be let to summer boarders and were, at this time of year, never occupied.

The Briarwood Hall preceptress allowed her girls to go only where she could trust the land-ladies to have some oversight over their lodgers.  And the girls themselves were bound in honor to obey the rules of the school, whether on the Briarwood premises or not.

Visiting among the outside scholars was forbidden, and the girls studying for graduation had their hours more to themselves than they would have had in the school.

Special chums were able to keep together in most instances.  Ruth, Helen and Ann Hicks went to live at Mrs. Sadoc Smith’s; and there was room in the huge front room on the second floor of her rambling old house, for Mercy, too, had it been wise for the lame girl to lodge so far from the school.