“Perseverence is the winning game, Nettie,” Ruth said to the Southern girl, cheerfully.  “Stick to it.”

“And if then you can’t make the sum come right, come to Aunt Ruthie and ask.  That’s what I do,” confessed Ann Hicks, the ranch girl.

“Perseverence wins,” quoth Helen.

“Oh, it does, does it?” cried Jennie Stone, called by the girls “Heavy,” in a smothered tone, for her mouth was full of caramels.  “Let me tell you that old ‘saw’ is a joke.  My little kid cousin proved that the other day.  She came to grandfather—­who is just as full of maxims and bits of wisdom as Helen seems to be to-day, and the kid said: 

“‘Grandpa, that’s a joke about “If at first you don’t succeed,” isn’t it?’

“And her grandfather answered, ’Certainly not.  “Try, try again.”  That’s right.’

“‘Huh!’ said the kid, who is one of these Cynthia-of-the-minute’ youngsters, ’you’re wrong, Grandpa.  I’ve been working for an hour blowing soapbubbles and trying to pin them on a clothes line in the nursery to dry!’ Perseverence didn’t cut much of a figure in her case, did it?” finished Heavy, with a chuckle.

The crowd of girls was in the big “quartette” room in the West Dormitory of Briarwood Hall.  The school had reopened only a week before, but all the friends were hard at work.  All but Ann Hicks and Nettie Parsons hoped to graduate the coming June.

In the group, besides Ruth and Helen, were their room-mates, Mercy Curtis and Ann Hicks; Jennie Stone; Mary Cox, the red-haired girl usually called “The Fox;” and Nettie Parsons, “the sugar king’s daughter,” as she was known to the school.  She was the one really rich girl at Briarwood—­and one of the simplest in both manner and dress.

Nettie was backward in her studies, as was Ann Hicks.  Nettie was a lovable, sweet-tempered girl, who had several reasons for being very fond of Ruth Fielding.  Indeed, if the truth were told, not a girl in the quartette that afternoon but had some particular reason for loving Ruth.

Ruth’s life at the school had been a very active one; yet she had never thrust herself forward.  Although she had been the originator of the most popular—­now the only sorority in the school, the Sweetbriars, she had refused to be its president for more than one term.  All the older girls were “Sweetbriars” now.

Mercy Curtis, who had a sweet voice, now commenced to sing the marching song of the school, which had been adopted by the Sweetbriars and made over into a special sorority song.  Sitting on her bed, with her arms clasped around her knees, the lame girl weaved back and forth as she sang: 

“’At Briarwood Hall we have many a lark—­
But one wide river to cross! 
The River of Knowledge—­its current dark—­
Is the one wide river to cross! 
Sweetbriars all-l! 
One wide River of Knowledge! 
Sweetbriars all-l! 
One wide river to cross!