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"I might have known you would be spying on us, Miss Picolet," she said, bitingly. "Suppose some of us should play the spy on you, Miss Picolet, and should run to Mrs. Tellingham with what we might discover?" "Go to your room instantly!" exclaimed the French teacher, with indignation. "You shall have an extra demerit for that, Miss!"
"I leave ye in good hands," he said, with a hoarse chuckle. "This here lady is one o' yer teachers, Ma'mzell Picolet." He pronounced the little lady's name quite as outlandishly as he did "mademoiselle." It sounded like "Pickle-yet" on his tongue. "That will do, M'sieur Dolliver," said the little lady, rather tartly. "I may venture to introduce myself is it not?" She did not raise her veil.
She could not fail to recount the mysterious behavior of the big man who played the harp in the boat orchestra, and Mademoiselle Picolet. And while these thoughts were following in slow procession through her mind she suddenly became aware of a sound without. The nearest window was open the lower sash raised to its full height. It was a warm and windless night. The sound was repeated.
It it is a letter that has been given me to be handed to you secretly." The little teacher's withered cheek flushed and her bright little eyes clouded. By the way one of her hands fluttered over her heart, too, Ruth knew that Miss Picolet was easily frightened. "A letter for me?" she whispered. Ruth was unbuttoning her coat and frock to get at the letter.
"Oh, dear me! oh, dear me!" gasped Miss Picolet. "I presume it is posi-tive that there is nobody up there? Were all the mesdemoiselles at supper this evening?" "Yes, yes," said Mrs. Tellingham's own voice. "Miss Brokaw has called the roll and there is none missing but our Ruthie. And now you would better run back, my dear," she added to Ruth. "You have no wrap or hat. I fear you will take cold."
"Miss Picolet, your French teacher, told me something about Mary Cox meeting the stage and getting hold of you two girls before you had reached Briarwood at all." "Yes, ma'am."
"Picolet will be watching us; and you know that, this early in the term, two black marks will mean an order to remain on the school premises. That old cat will catch us if she can." "Mean little thing!" said Heavy, wheezily. "I wish anybody but Miss Picolet lived in our house." From this Ruth judged that most of these Up and Doings were in the dormitory in which she and Helen were billeted.
Tellingham's curiosity was no idle matter. "Where?" "On the Lanawaxa the boat coming down the lake, Mrs. Tellingham." "Miss Picolet was alone aboard the boat?" Ruth signified that she was. "Did you see her speaking with anybody?" "We saw a man speak to her. He was one of the musicians. He frightened Miss Picolet. Afterward we saw that he had followed her out upon the wharf.
"What do you mean?" inquired Mary Cox, suspiciously. "We saw somebody on the boat coming over to Portageton that knew Miss Picolet." "Oh, Helen!" ejaculated Ruth, warningly.
Tellingham would have something to say about it, too," declared Helen. It was not the subject of school clubs that was the burden of Ruth Fielding's thought for most of that day, however. Nor did the arrival of so many new scholars put the main idea in her mind aside. This troubling thought was of Miss Picolet and the sound of the harp on the campus at midnight.
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