All the people who knew her were beginning to make a fuss over Ruth Craven. She who had hardly ever been noticed during the early part of her life, who was just her grandfather's darling and her grandmother's idol, was now petted and made much of and fussed over by every one. It was quite an extraordinary thing for the paying girls of the Great Shirley School to be so interested and excited about a foundationer. Cassandra Weldon was not the only girl who had taken Ruth up; some of the best and nicest girls of the school began to patronize her. The fact was that she was very modest and a perfect lady, and it was impossible to feel anything but good-will towards her. The rest of the foundation girls at first determined that they would leave her with her fine friends, but when Kathleen insisted on Ruth's joining the secret society of the Wild Irish Girls, they were obliged to submit.

"We'd do anything in the world for our queen," said Susy Hopkins, talking to another foundation girl one day as they strolled along the road. "It is to-night we are to meet again, and she says she will bring the rules all drawn up, and she will read them to us. There are about thirty of us now, and more and more offer to join every day. The difficulty is that we have got to keep the thing from the knowledge of the teachers and the paying girls of the school. Kathleen is certain that it would be suppressed if it were known; and it must not be known, for it is the biggest lark and the greatest fun we ever had in all our lives."

"Yes," said Rosy Myers; "I feel now quite honored at being a foundation girl."

"She does promise us wonderful things," said Kate Rourke. "She says when the summer comes we shall have all sorts of nice excursions. Of course, we can't do anything special in the daytime, unless sometimes on Saturday, when we have a whole holiday; but at least; she says, the nights are our own and we can do as we like. It really is grand. I suppose it is wicked, but then that makes it rather more fascinating."

"We are in the queen's Cabinet, bless her, the duck!" said Susy Hopkins. "There are a dozen of us now, and there is talk of a sort of livery or badge for the members of the Cabinet; but we'll know all about it when we meet sharp at nine to-night. We are the twelve members of the Cabinet, and there are about twenty girls who are our sort of standing army. It is really most exciting."

The girls talked a little longer and then parted. As Susy Hopkins was running home helter-skelter—for she wanted to get her lessons done in order to be fully in time for the meeting that evening—she met Ruth Craven. Ruth was walking slowly by with her usual demure and sweet expression.

"Hullo!" called out Susy. "We'll meet to-night, sha'n't we?"

"I don't know," said Ruth.

"Aren't you coming? Why, you are sort of Prime Minister to the queen."

"You don't think it right really, do you," said Ruth—"not from the bottom of your heart, I mean?"

"Right or wrong, I mean to enjoy myself," said Susy Hopkins. "I suppose, if you come to analyse it, it is wrong, and not right. But, dear me, Ruth! what fun should we poor girls have if we were too particular on these points?"

"It always seems to me that it is worth while to do right," said Ruth.

"So you say, but I don't quite agree with you. You will come to-night, in any case, won't you?"

"Yes, I will come to-night; but I am not happy about it, and I wish Kathleen—Oh, I know it is very fascinating, and Kathleen is just delightful, but I should not like our teachers to know."

"Of course not," said Susy, staring at her. "They'd soon put a stop to it."

"Are you certain? I know so little about the school."

"Certain? I'm convinced. Why, they'd be furious. I expect we'd be expelled."

"Then that proves it. I didn't know there was any strict rule about it."

"Why, what are you made of, Ruth Craven?"

"I thought," said Ruth, "that when we were not in school we were our own mistresses."

"To a certain extent, of course; but we have what is called the school character to keep up. We have, as it were, to uphold the spirit of the school. Now the spirit of the school is quite against secrecy in any form. Oh dear, why will you drag all this out of me? I'd made up my mind not to think of it, and now you have forced me to say it. Of course you will come to-night. You have to think of Kathleen as well as the school, and she's gone to a fearful lot of expense. You could not by any possibility forsake her, could you?"

"No, of course not," said Ruth very slowly.

She bade Susy good-bye and walked on; her attitude was that of one who was thinking hard.

"Ruth is very pretty," said Susy to herself, "but I don't know that I quite admire her. She is the sort of girl that everybody loves, and I am not one to admire a universal favorite. She is frightfully, tiresomely good, and she's just too pretty; and she's not a bit vain, and she's not a bit puffed up. Oh, she is just right in every way, and yet I feel that I hate her. She has got the sort of conscience that will worry our queen to distraction. Still, once she joins she'll have to obey our rules, and I expect our queen will make them somewhat stringent."

A clock from a neighboring church struck the half-ho............