"That sounds horrid!" declared Jennie with sudden vigor, and she did not look pleased.
"You may as well face the truth, my dear," said the mathematics teacher, eyeing the distressing curves of the fleshy girl without prejudice. "Here are upwards of a thousand girls—or will be when all have arrived and registered. And you will be locally famous."
"Oh, don't!" groaned Ruth.
"Poor Heavy!" gasped Helen.
Miss Cullam uttered a short laugh.
"Your friends evidently love you, my dear," she said, patting the fleshy girl's plump cheek. "But you want to make new friends—you wish to be admired, I know. It will not be pleasant to gain the reputation of being Ardmore's heavyweight, will it?"
"It sounds pretty bad," admitted Heavy, coming out of her momentary slough of despond. "But we all have our little troubles, don't we, Miss Cullam?"
Somehow this question seemed to quench the teacher of mathematics' good spirits. A cloud settled upon her countenance, and she nodded seriously.
"We all have; true enough, Miss Stone," she said. "And I hope you, as pupils at Ardmore, will never suffer such disturbance of mind as I, a teacher, sometimes do."
Ruth, who had started up the stairway next to the teacher, put a friendly hand upon Miss Cullam's arm. "I hope we three will never add to your burdens, my dear Miss Cullam," she whispered.