After recitation, and before dinner, several of the girls deliberately cut her as Mary Cox had. But Helen said nothing, nor would Ruth speak first. She saw plainly that The Fox had started the cabal against her. It made Ruth feel very unhappy, but there was nothing she could do to defend herself.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE MYSTERY AGAIN
The organization of the Sweetbriars had gone on apace. Two general meetings had been held. Every new-comer to the school, who had entered the Junior classes, saving Helen Cameron, had joined the new society. The committee on constitution and by-laws was now ready to report and this very afternoon Ruth and two other girls waited on Mrs. Tellingham to ask permission to hold social meetings in one of the assembly rooms on stated occasions, as the other school societies did.
The trio of Sweetbriars had to wait a little while in the hall outside the library door, for Mrs. Tellingham was engaged. Mary Cox came out first and as she passed Ruth she tossed her head and said:
"Well, are you here to tattle about somebody else?"
Ruth was stricken speechless, and the girls with her asked wonderingly what the older girl had meant.
"I—I do not know just what she means," gasped Ruth, "only that she means to hurt me if she can."
"She's mad with you," said one, "because you started the S. B.'s and wouldn't join her old Upede Club.