"Who is she, Heavy?" demanded Helen, in an undertone.
"She looks nice," observed Ruth.
"Miss Cullam. She's the one that advised the string beans," declared Jennie out of the corner of her mouth. Then she added, most cordially: "Oh! how do you do! These are my two chums from Briarwood—Ruth Fielding and Helen Cameron. Miss Cullam, girls."
The teacher, who was rather elderly, but very brisk and neat, if not wholly attractive, approached smiling.
"You will meet me in mathematics, young ladies," she said, shaking hands with the two introduced freshmen. "And how are you to-night, Miss Stone? Have you stuck to your vegetable diet, as I advised?"
Heavy made her jolly, round face seem as long as possible, and groaned hollowly.
"Oh, Miss Cullam!" she said, "I believe I could have stuck to the diet, if——"
"Well, if what?" demanded the teacher.
"If the diet would only stick to me. But it doesn't. I ate pecks of string beans for lunch, and by the middle of the afternoon I felt like a castaway after two weeks upon a desert island."
"Nonsense, Miss Stone!" exclaimed the teacher, yet laughing too. Heavy was so ridiculous that it was impossible not to be amused. "You should practise abstinence. Really, you are the very fattest girl at Ardmore, I do believe."