"What do you mean?" demanded her chum.
"Why, Helen, doesn't it seem to you that Mary Cox came out deliberately to meet us, and for the purpose of making us feel under obligation to her?"
"For pity's sake, what for?"
"So that we would feel just as you do—that we ought if possible to attend the meeting of her society?"
"I declare, Ruth Fielding! How suspicious you have become all of a sudden."
Ruth still laughed. But she said, too: "That is the way it has struck me, Helen. And I wondered if you did not see her attention in the same light, also."
"Why, she hasn't asked us to join the Upedes," said Helen.
"I know. And neither has Miss Steele——"
"You seem to have taken a great fancy to that Madge Steele," interrupted Helen, sharply.
"I think she is nice looking—and she was very polite," said Ruth, quietly.