Cora was quite put out for the moment. She had taken her first plunge into the matter, had been brought up short, and now scarcely knew how to carry on the attack on Nancy which had seemed so easy the minute before.
"Well--well--I--I----"
"Why do you stammer so, Miss Rathmore?" asked the princ.i.p.al. "Is it a fact that that which seemed so desirable to say just now appears to you in another light when you have taken time to think it over?"
Stung by this suggestion Cora threw all caution to the winds. Her black eyes flashed once more. She even stamped her foot as she pointed her finger at Nancy.
"I tell you what it is, Madame Schakael!" she cried. "I won"t stay in the same dormitory with that girl another day. If you make me I"ll write home to my mother."
"And your reasons?" asked Madame Schakael, quite calmly.
"She is a perfect n.o.body!" gasped Cora. "She came here from a charity school. She"s never lived anywhere else but at that school. She doesn"t know a living thing about herself--who she is, what her folks were, why they abandoned her----"
Possibly Madame Schakael said something. But, if so, neither of the three heard what it was. Yet Cora suddenly stopped in her tirade--stricken dumb by the expression on the princ.i.p.al"s countenance.
The little lady"s face was ablaze with emotion. She raised a warning hand and it seemed as though, for a moment, she could not herself speak.
"Girl! Who has dared tell you such perfectly ridiculous things? What is the meaning of this wrangle in Pinewood Hall? I am amazed--perfectly amazed--that a girl under my charge should express herself so cruelly and rudely, as well as in so nonsensical a manner.
"To put you right, first of all, Miss Rathmore, Miss Nelson"s position in life is entirely different from what you seem to suspect. She is an orphan. I understand; but Mr. Henry Gordon has a careful oversight of her welfare, and he pays for her education out of funds in his hands for that purpose, and I am instructed to let her want for nothing. She is not at all the friendless object of charity that you have evidently been led to believe.
"The Higbee Endowment School in which Miss Nelson has been educated is by no means a charitable inst.i.tution. It is a much better school than the one in which you were taught previous to coming to Pinewood, Miss Rathmore; I can accept pupils from Higbee into my freshman cla.s.ses without any special preparation.
"I had no idea that girls under my charge would be so cruel as you seem to be toward Nancy Nelson. Corinne! what does it mean?"
"I"m afraid I have let it go too far, Madame," responded the senior, gravely. "But you know, these freshmen have got to learn to fight their own battles. _I_ had to when I came."
"Yes, yes; that is all right," said the princ.i.p.al, waving her hand. "But remember, Corinne, I mentioned to you when Nancy Nelson came that she was one of the sensitive kind."
"And for that very reason the sensitive girls are hard to shake into their places," declared the captain of the West Side. "And then, she roomed with Cora, here, and I thought she was one of that crowd."
"I guess my crowd is just as good as yours!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Cora, plucking up the remnants of her courage.
"In my opinion, Madame Schakael," continued Corinne, ignoring Cora, "I"d give this Rathmore girl another roommate. It would be a kindness to Nancy."
At the moment Jennie Bruce entered with more abruptness than good manners. But Jennie was excited.
"Oh, Madame Schakael! don"t punish her any more!" she cried, running to Nancy and throwing her arms about her.
Necessarily she dropped the bag. The Madame pointed to it.
"What is this, Miss Bruce?" she demanded.
"Let me tell you!" cried Jennie. "That"s what I came in for, Madame.
These horrid girls--Rathmore and her tribe--have just hounded Nancy so that she wanted to run away."
"Run away?" gasped the princ.i.p.al. "From Pinewood?"
"Yes, Madame! But then she remembered she was on honor to stay indoors; so even after throwing her bag out of the window, she gave up the intention. And let me tell you," added Jennie, storming with anger, "if this stuck-up, silly Cora Rathmore doesn"t want to room with Nancy, I do!"
The excited girl turned to the sobbing Nancy and took her in her arms again.
"Don"t you mind what the others say to you, Nance!" she cried. "I"ll stick to you, you bet! And maybe some time we can solve the mystery,"
she added, in a whisper, "and find out who you are. _Then_ we"ll make "em all sorry they treated you so," for it seemed to be a foregone conclusion with Jennie that Nancy would prove to be a very great person indeed if her ident.i.ty were once discovered.
"Dear, dear me!" exclaimed Madame Schakael, softly. But she really smiled upon the excited Jennie. "I shall have to write to your mother, Miss Bruce, after all, that you seem hopeless. You never _will_ be able to restrain those over-abundant spirits of yours.
"But, my dear, I shall never have to tell that you are unkind. You have solved this little problem, I believe. It would be undeserved punishment to keep Miss Nelson in the room with Miss Rathmore any longer. In fact, I believe that the punishment meted out to Miss Nelson already, and by myself, has been too heavy.
"Two things shall be changed; Nancy Nelson is released from the order to remain indoors in recreation hours. Furthermore, she shall have a new roommate."
She turned suddenly to the sullen Cora.
"Miss Rathmore! You have revealed yourself to us all in a light which, to say the least, is not a happy one. I will remove you from Number 30, West Side. Indeed, it would be an imposition upon Miss Nelson to keep you there. How do you suppose your present chum in Number 40 would welcome Miss Rathmore, Jennie?" she added.
"Oh, I don"t know," replied Jennie, her eyes twinkling. "Sally is one of Cora"s crowd; but I haven"t anything against Sally, so I wouldn"t wish Cora on her."
"That will do! that will do, Jennie! I did not ask you to be quite so frank," said the Madame, quickly. "What do you say, Corinne?"
"It"s a good idea, Madame," returned the captain, with a sigh.
"Very well, then; because Miss Nelson deserves a more pleasant and agreeable roommate, you may change places with Jennie Bruce, Miss Rathmore."
"I don"t care how you put it, Madame!" exclaimed Cora, with a toss of her head. "I am glad to get out of Number 30. And, however you may put it, Nancy Nelson _is_ a n.o.body----"
"You will lose _your_ recreation hours until the Christmas holiday, Miss Rathmore," declared the Madame, rapping on her desk with a pencil. "And don"t let me hear any more of this back-biting and unkindness in the freshman cla.s.s. Understand? You are all four excused."
They obeyed the little woman who--by turns--could be so stern and yet so kind. Cora Rathmore flashed out in the lead and, crying with shame and anger, ran upstairs without speaking to her chums at the foot of the flight.
Corinne came out of the anteroom with an arm around the waist of each of the smaller girls. Quite a number of the West Side girls were either coming down the stairs, or had already gathered to wait for the doors to open into the dining room.
"I want you girlies to know," said the captain, cheerfully, "that we"ve got two perfect little bricks in this cla.s.s of greenies at Pinewood Hall. And one of "em"s named Jennie Bruce and the other"s named Nancy Nelson.
"I prophesy, too," pursued the beauty of the school, "that Jennie and Nancy are going to be the most notorious female Damon-and-Pythias combination we have ever had at Pinewood.
"Now, run along, you two children," she added, giving Jennie and Nancy a little shove each, "and get your eyes cooled off and wash your dirty little hands for supper. Hurry up!"
And did Nancy and Jennie care what the girls said to them now? Not a bit of it!
They went up the stairs and through the long corridor with their arms around each other. And Jennie insisted upon taking Nancy to her room to fix up for supper.
"We"ll only run across Cora in Number 30--and I don"t want to have to slap her face!" declared the still wrathful Jennie.
"Then I"ll help you pack up your things to bring to Number 30," said Nancy.
"Oh, not before supper, Nance!" cried Jennie, in horror. "I could go out and bite a piece off the stone step, and swallow it right down, I"m so hungry."
For the first time since she had come to Pinewood Hall, Nancy Nelson went down to supper with her arm around another girl"s waist, and another girl"s arm around hers.