The meeting, as far as the business went, was conducted briskly and to the point. Then it was "thrown open" and everybody—but the visitors—talked just as they pleased. Helen and Ruth were made to feel at home, and the girls were most lively and good-natured. They heard that the Upedes were to have a picnic at a grove upon the shore of Lake Triton on the Saturday week, and that Old Dolliver and his ramshackle stage, and another vehicle of the same caliber, were engaged for the trip.
"But beware of black marks, girls," warned Mary Cox. "Picolet will be watching us; and you know that, this early in the term, two black marks will mean an order to remain on the school premises. That old cat will catch us if she can."
"Mean little thing!" said Heavy, wheezily. "I wish anybody but Miss Picolet lived in our house."
From this Ruth judged that most of these Up 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.