Helen and Ann had come to the Hall, late for breakfast, and spread the news in the dining hall. They were both sure, by Ruth's actions and the doctor's first noncommittal report, that Amy had some contagious disease. Curly had made a deal of the sore throat Amy had confessed to.
"And if that's so," Helen said, almost in tears, "poor Ruth will be quarantined for weeks."
"Why, Helen, how will she graduate?" gasped Lluella.
"She won't! She can't!" declared Ruth's chum. "It will be dreadful!"
"I say!" cried Jennie, thoroughly alarmed. "We musn't let her stay there and nurse that young one. Why! what ever would we do if Ruthie Fielding didn't graduate?"
"The class would be without a head," declared Mercy.
"It would be without a heart, at least—and a great, big one overflowing with love and tenderness," cried Nettie Parsons, wiping her eyes.
"I don't want any more breakfast," said Jennie, pushing her plate away. "Don't talk like that, Nettie. You'll get me to crying too. And that always spoils my digestion."
"If Ruth isn't with us when we get our diplomas, I'm sure I don't want any!" exclaimed Mary Cox. And she meant it, too. Mary Cox believed that she owed her brother's life to Ruth Fielding, and although she was not naturally a demonstrative girl, there was nobody at Briarwood Hall who admired the girl of the Red Mill more than Mary.
In fact, the threat of disaster to Ruth's graduation plans cast a pall of gloom over the school. The moving pictures were forgotten; Amy Gregg's part in the destruction of the West Dormitory ceased to be a topic of conversation. Was Ruth Fielding going to be held in quarantine? grew to be a more momentous question than any other.