"Well, we're not doing it," scoffed Jennie. "And that Rebecca Frayne is behaving like a chump."
"But how she does stick to that awful tam!" groaned Helen.
"Stubborn as a mule," agreed Jennie.
"I saw her with another hat on to-day," said Ruth, reflectively.
"That's so! It was the one she wore the day she arrived," Helen said quickly. "A summer hat. I wonder what she did bring in that trunk, anyway? She has displayed no such charming array of finery as I expected."
Ruth did not discuss this point. She was more interested in the state of Rebecca's mind, though, of course, there was not much time for her to give to anything but her studies and regular duties now, for as the term advanced the freshmen found their hours pretty well filled.
Scrub teams for certain indoor sports had been made up, and even Jennie Stone took up the playing of basketball with vigor. She was really losing flesh. She kept a card tacked upon her door on which she set down the fluctuations of her bodily changes daily. When she lost a whole pound in weight she wrote it down in red ink.
Their activities kept the three friends well occupied, both physically and mentally. Yet Ruth Fielding could not feel wholly satisfied or content when she knew that one of her mates was in trouble. She had taken an interest in Rebecca Frayne at the beginning of the semester; yet of all the freshmen Rebecca was the one whom she knew the least.
"And that poor girl needs somebody for a friend—I feel it!" Ruth told herself. "Of course, she is to blame for the situation in which she now is. But for that very reason she ought to have somebody with whom to talk it over."
Ruth determined to be that confidant of the girl who seemed to wish no associate and no confidant. She began to loiter in the corridors between recitation hours and at odd times. Whenever she knocked on Rebecca's door there was no reply. Other girls who had tried it quickly gave up their sympathetic attentions. If the foolish girl wished for no friends, let her go her own way. That became the attitude of the freshman class. Of course, the sophomores followed the lead of the seniors and the juniors, having as little to do with the unfortunate girl as possible.