Page:Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall.djvu/163

Rh had first entered the room, "you had met Miss Picolet before you arrived at the school?"

"She spoke to us in the stage—yes, ma'am."

"But before that—you had seen her?'

"Ye-es, ma'am," said Ruth, slowly, beginning to suspect that Mrs. Tellingham's curiosity was no idle matter.

"Where?"

"On the Lanawaxa—the boat coming down the lake, Mrs. Tellingham."

"Miss Picolet was alone aboard the boat?"

Ruth signified that she was.

"Did you see her speaking with anybody?"

"We saw a man speak to her. He was one of the musicians. He frightened Miss Picolet. Afterward we saw that he had followed her out upon the wharf. He was a big man who played a harp."

"And you told this to your school-fellows after you became acquainted here?"

Mrs. Tellingham spoke very sternly indeed, and her gaze never left Ruth's face. The girl from the Red Mill hesitated but an instant. She had never spoken of the man and Miss Picolet to anybody save Helen; but she knew that her chum must have told all the particulars to Mary Cox.

"I—I believe we did mention it to some of the girls. It impressed us as peculiar—