Page:Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall.djvu/111

Rh chasing itinerant musicians off the grounds that very evening—among them a harpist.

The evil-looking man who played the harp on board the steamship, and who had so frightened little Miss Picolet, had followed the French teacher ashore.

Had he followed her to Briarwood Hall? Was he an enemy who plagued the little French teacher—perhaps blackmailed her?

These were the various ideas revolving in Ruth Fielding's head. And they revolved until the girl fell asleep from sheer exhaustion, and they troubled her sleep all through the remainder of the night. For that the man with the harp and Miss Picolet had a rendezvous behind the marble figure on the campus fountain was the sum and substance of the conclusion which Ruth had come to.

In the morning Ruth only mentioned these suppositions to Helen, but discussed them not at all with the other girls, her new school-fellows. Indeed, those girls who had set out to haze the two Infants, and had been frightened by the manifestation of the sounding harp upon the campus, were not likely to broach the subject to Ruth or Helen, either. For they had intended to surround their raid upon the new-comers' peace of mind with more or less secrecy.

However, sixteen frightened girls (without