Nancy could not speak then. Jennie put her arm over her shoulder.
"Come on into _my_ bed, Nancy," she said. "Sally will wake us up when she comes back from the spread. I think Cora and that Montgomery girl have treated you just as meanly as they could."
Nancy still sobbed. Jennie opened the door of Number 40 and drew her inside.
"Don"t you let them see that you care," commanded Jennie.
"I--I don"t care a--about _them_," sobbed Nancy. "It"s--it"s because I haven"t a friend in the world."
"Oh, don"t say that, honey," urged the other girl, still holding Nancy in her arms after they had discarded their robes and crept between the sheets.
"It--it is so," sobbed Nancy.
"You mean you haven"t made friends here at Pinewood?"
"I haven"t made friends anywhere," said Nancy.
"Why--why--Surely you have some folks--some relatives----?"
Nancy"s naturally frank nature overpowered her caution here. Jennie Bruce was the first girl who had ever seemed to care about Nancy"s troubles. She did not seem curious--only kind. The lonely girl did the very thing which her caution all the time had warned her would be disastrous.
She opened her heart to Jennie Bruce.
"Do you know who I am?" she demanded of the surprised Jennie.
"Why--what do you mean? Of course you are Nancy Nelson."
"I don"t even know if I have a right to that name."
"Mercy!"
"It"s the only name I know. It seems to be the only name anybody who knows about me, knows."
"Then it"s yours."
"How do I know _that_?" queried Nancy, bitterly. "I"m just a little Miss n.o.body."
"Goodness me! but that _does_ sound romantic," whispered Jennie.
"Romantic!" cried Nancy, with scorn. "It"s nothing of the kind. You"re as bad as Scorch."
"As bad as _who_?"
"Scorch O"Brien," replied Nancy.
"Well, for goodness sake! if that doesn"t sound interesting," cried Jenny. "Who is Scorch O"Brien? What a perfectly ridiculous name! Why "Scorch?""
"He"s red-headed," explained Nancy, doubtful now. She saw that she had got herself to a point where she must tell it all--every bit of her story--if she wished to keep Jennie"s friendship.
"Bully! Scorch O"Brien is fine," laughed Jennie. "Let"s hear all about you, Nancy Nelson. I bet you"ve got lots of the queerest friends, only you don"t know it. I--I"ve got nothing but brothers, and sisters, and cousins, and all that sort of trash. The Bruces hold most all the political offices in the town where I come from. You couldn"t throw a stone anywhere in Hollyburg without hitting one of the family.
"But just think! You"ve got no folks to bother you. There are no teasing cousins. You haven"t got to "be nice" to relatives that you fairly can"t help hating!
"Oh, I believe you"ve got it _good_, Nancy Nelson; only you don"t know it!"
So, thus encouraged, and lying in Jennie"s warm embrace, Nancy whispered the full and particular account of the little, unknown girl who had been brought to Higbee School, far away in Malden, nearly ten years before.
She told Jennie about Miss Prentice and about the long, tedious vacations with Miss Trigg, even down to the last one when she had helped save Bob Endress--then a perfect stranger to her--from the millpond.
"And he knew you right away on the ice to-day? I saw him! Good for you!
He"s the most popular boy in Clinton Academy," declared Jennie with conviction.
"But I don"t care anything about _that_," said Nancy, honestly. "I want the girls to like me. And I know if they learn that I am just a n.o.body----"
"What nonsense! You may be a great heiress. Why! maybe you belong to royalty----"
"In America!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Nancy, the practical.
"Well! they could have brought you over the ocean."
"I haven"t heard of any of the royal families of Europe advertising for a lost princess," Nancy said, in better humor now. "And I know I don"t look like the Turks, or the Chinese, or Hindoos, or anything like that.
I guess I"m an American, all right."
"But you must have somebody very rich belonging to you," cried Jennie.
"I don"t know."
"Then that Mr. Gordon must know more about you than he will tell."
"I--I am almost tempted to believe so," admitted Nancy.
"I believe it!"
"Scorch says so."
"That boy is all right," declared Jennie. "I"d like to know him."
"But I don"t see how Mr. Gordon is to be made to tell what he knows--if he _does_ know more than he has admitted about me," sighed Nancy.
"Neither do I--yet," said Jennie. "But we"ll think about it. Maybe that Scorch will find out something."
"But--really--Mr. Gordon is very kind to me. See how much money he gives me."
"And perhaps that is only a t.i.the of what he steals from you."
"You"re as bad as Scorch," declared Nancy.
"Well--of course--maybe he is telling the truth, too," said Jennie. "And twenty dollars at one clip I--Whew!"