“He is well, I believe,” said Ruth, gravely.  “He is not far from here, you know; he attends the Seven Oaks Military Academy.”

“Oh! so he does.  Maybe we shall go that way,” said Hazel Gray, carelessly.  “It would be lots of fun to see him again.  Give my love to his sister.”

“Yes, Miss Gray,” Ruth returned seriously.  “I will tell Helen.”

She really liked Hazel Gray, and wished to see her get ahead.  And it was through her acquaintanceship with Hazel that Ruth had made a friend of Mr. Hammond.  But it annoyed Ruth that the actress should continue to be so friendly with Tom Cameron.

She thought no good could come of it Tom Cameron had always seemed such a seriously inclined boy, in spite of his ready fun and cheerfulness.  To have him show such partiality for a girl so much older than himself, really a grown woman, as Hazel Gray was, disturbed Ruth.

She said nothing to her chum about it.  If Helen was not worried about her twin’s predilection for the moving picture actress, it did not become Ruth to worry.

Ruth went back to Briarwood, encouraged to go on with the writing of the drama.  From Mr. Hammond’s fertile mind had come several helpful suggestions.  The plot of the play was very intimately connected with the history of Briarwood.  There was included in its scenes a “Masque of the Marble Harp,” in which the whole school was to be grouped about the fountain in the sunken garden.

The marble figure of Harmony, or Poesy, or whatever it was supposed to represent, was to come to life in the picture and strum the strings of the lyre which it held.  This was a trick picture and Mr. Hammond had explained to Ruth just how it was to be made.

The legend of the marble harp, which had been kept alive by succeeding classes of Briarwood girls for the purpose of hazing “infants,” came in very nicely now in Ruth’s story.  And the arrangement of this trick picture suggested another thing to Ruth Fielding, something which she had been racking her brains about for some time.

This idea had nothing to do with the present play; it had to do, instead, with Mercy Curtis and the graduation exercises.  One idea bred another in Ruth Fielding’s teeming brain.  Her dramatic faculties, were being sharpened.

With all their regular studies and recitations, the seniors had to take their usual turns as monitors, and Ruth could not escape this duty.  Besides, it was an honor not to be scorned, to be chosen to preside over the “primes,” or to take the head of a table at dinner.

A teacher was ill on one day and Miss Brokaw asked Ruth to take certain classes of the primary grade.  The recitations were on subjects quite familiar to Ruth and she felt no hesitancy in accepting the responsibility; but there was more ahead of her than she supposed when she entered on the task.

As it chanced, the flaxen-haired Amy Gregg was in the class of which Ruth was sent to take charge.  Amy scowled at the senior when the latter took the desk; but most of the other girls were glad to see Ruth Fielding.