Page:Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall.djvu/171

Rh it. Besides, it was vacation week, and the Preceptress was much more lenient.

Of course, Helen was going; but Ruth had her doubts. Mercy could not go, and the girl of the Red Mill hated to leave her poor little crippled friend alone. But Mercy was as sharp of perception as she was of tongue. When Helen blurted out the story of the skating frolic, Ruth said "she would see" about going; she said she wasn't sure that she would care to go.

"I'm such a new skater, you know," she laughed. "Maybe I'd break down skating out to the steamboat, and wouldn't get there, and while all you folks were eating that nice hot lunch I'd be freezing to death—poor little me!—'way out there on the ice."

But Mercy, with her head on one side and her sharp blue eyes looking from Helen to Ruth, shot out:

"Now, don't you think you're smart, Ruth Fielding? Why, I can see right through you—just as though you were a rag of torn mosquito netting! You won't go because I'll be left alone."

"No," said Ruth, but flushing.

"Yes," shot back Mercy. "And I don't have to turn red about it, either. Oh, Ruthie, Ruthie! you can't even tell a white one without blushing about it."

"I—don't—know"