"Do I know her?" asked Ruth, somewhat puzzled.
"She left before the end of the term. I—I am not sure just what the matter was with her. But she is connected in my mind with a great misfortune."
"Indeed, Miss Cullam?" said the sympathetic Ruth.
It was, perhaps, the sympathy in her tone that urged the instructor to confide her trouble to a strange girl—a freshman, at that!
"I hope I shall never have the same fears and doubts regarding you and your friends, Miss Fielding, that I have felt about some of these girls who are now sophomores—and some of the juniors, too."
"Oh, Miss Cullam! What do you mean?"
"Well, I'll tell you, my dear," the teacher said, taking the comfortable chair at Ruth's gestured recommendation, as the girl switched on the electricity. "You seem like an above-the-average sensible girl——"
Ruth laughed at that, but she dimpled, too, and Miss Cullam joined in the laughter.
"Some of these girls were mere flyaways," she said. "But not many, after all. Girls who come as far as college, even to the freshman course in college, usually have something in their pretty noddles besides ideas for dressing their hair.
"Well, I will confide in you, as I say, because I have a fancy to. I like you. Listen to the troubles of a poor mathematics instructor."