“Edith getting letters from out there and then creeping along that ledge under our windows to listen. Well, I’d give a cent to know what’s in that letter.”
“Oh, Helen! We couldn’t,” cried Ruth, quickly, folding the envelope and slipping it between the buttons of her blouse.
“Just the same,” declared her chum, “she was eavesdropping on us. We ought to be excused if we did a little eavesdropping on her by reading her letter.”
But Ruth set off immediately in a good, swinging trot, and Helen had to close her lips and put her elbows to her sides to keep up with her. Later, when they had taken their morning shower and had dressed and all the girls were trooping down the main stairway of Dare Hall in answer to the breakfast call, Ruth spied Edith Phelps and hailed her, drawing the letter from her bosom.
“Hi, Edith Phelps! Here’s something that belongs to you.”
The sophomore turned quickly to face the girl of the Red Mill, and with no pleasant expression of countenance. “What have you there?” she snapped.
“A letter that you dropped,” said Ruth, quietly.
“That I dropped?” and she came quickly to seize the proffered missive. “Ha! I suppose you took pains to read it?”
Ruth drew back, paling. The thrust hurt her cruelly and although she would not reply, the sophomore’s gibe did not go without answer. Helen’s black eyes flashed as she stepped in front of her chum.
“I can assure you Ruth and I do not read other people’s correspondence any more than we listen to other people’s private conversation, Phelps,” she said directly. “We found that letter under our window where you dropped it last night!”