Page:Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall.djvu/77

Rh and Doings were in the dormitory in which she and Helen were billeted.

"I don't see what Mrs. Tellingham keeps Picolet for," complained another girl.

"For a spy," snapped Mary Cox. "But we'll get the best of her yet. She isn't fit to be a teacher in this school, anyway."

"Oh, she's a good French teacher—of course. It's her native tongue," said one of the other girls, who was called Belle Tingley.

"That's all very well," snapped Mary. "But there's something secret and underhand about her. She claims to have nobody related to her in this country; but if the truth were known, I guess, she has reason to be ashamed of her family and friends. I've heard something"

She stopped and looked knowingly at Ruth and Helen. The former flushed as she remembered the man in the red waistcoat who played the harp aboard the steamboat. But Helen seemed to have forgotten the incident, for she paid no attention to Mary's unfinished suggestion.

It worried Ruth, however. She heartily wished that her chum had said nothing to the Cox girl about the man who played the harp and his connection with the little French teacher.