As though the entrance of this girl were expected, a hush fell over the room. Everybody but Jennie looked up, their soup spoons poised as they watched Rebecca Frayne walk down the long room to her place at the housekeeper's table.
"Sh!" hissed Helen, admonishing Jennie Stone.
"What's the matter?" demanded the fleshy girl in surprise. "Is my soup noisy? I'll have to train it better."
But nobody laughed. All eyes were fastened on the girl who had made herself so obnoxious to the seniors and the juniors of Ardmore. She sat down and a waitress put her soup before her. Before poor Rebecca could lift her spoon there was a stir all over the room. Every senior and junior (and there were more than half a hundred in the dining hall) arose, save those acting as table-captains or monitors. The rustle of their rising was subdued; they murmured their excuses to the heads of their several tables in a perfectly polite manner; and not a glance from their eyes turned toward Rebecca Frayne. But as they walked out of the dining hall, their dinners scarcely tasted, the slight put upon the freshman who would not obey was too direct and obvious to be mistaken.
Even Jennie Stone was at length aroused from her enjoyment of the very good soup.
"What do you know about that?" she demanded of Ruth and Helen.
Ruth said not a word. To tell the truth she felt so sorry for Rebecca Frayne that she lost taste for her own meal, hungry though she had been when she sat down.
How Rebecca herself felt could only be imagined. She had already shown herself to be a painful mixture of sensitiveness and carelessness of criticism that made Ruth Fielding, at least, wonder greatly.
Now she ate her dinner without seeming to observe the attitude the members of the older classes had taken.
"Cracky!" murmured Jennie, in the middle of dinner. "She's got all the best of it—believe me! The seniors and the juns go hungry."