CORA RATHMORE
Nancy followed the senior out of the principal's presence, feeling much
encouraged. Madame Schakael was so different from Miss Prentice, the
principal of the school at which Nancy had lived so many years.
"Isn't she just the sweetest woman you ever met?" demanded Corinne,
enthusiastically.
"She is lovely," responded Nancy.
"But she is firm. Don't try to take any advantage of her," laughed the
senior. "You will find that she is only doll-like in appearance. She is
a very scholarly woman, and she believes strongly in discipline. But she
gets effects without dealing out much punishment. You'll learn."
"I hope I won't need to learn her stern side," said Nancy, smiling.
"Well, you seem a sensible kid," said the older girl, patting her on the
shoulder. "Come on, now, and have your dinner. Then I'll take you up
into our side of the hall."
"I hope I am not taking up your time too much, Miss--Miss Pevay," said
Nancy.
"Not at all," laughed the senior. "What is the good of being boss of a
'side' if one has no responsibilities? It's an honor to be captain of
the West Side of Pinewood Hall."
"Oh! it must be," agreed Nancy, who thought this beautiful girl a very
great person indeed.
They came to the long room in which the tables were set. There were only
a few girls in the room. Nancy at once saw the Montgomery girl and her
friends at one table, but was glad that Miss Pevay did not approach
them.
Indeed, Corinne took her to one of the senior tables where two or three
of the older pupils of Pinewood were grouped.
"Here's a little 'greeny' who has come among us hungry," laughed the
senior, urging Nancy into a chair and beckoning to one of the
waitresses.
The other big girls were kind to the newcomer; but they had interests of
their own and what they chatted about was all "Greek" to Nancy Nelson.
So she gave her strict attention to the food.
The dinner was nicely served and was much better than the food usually
put on the table at Higbee School. By this time Nancy _was_ hungry, and
she did full justice to the repast. Meanwhile an occasional brisk fire
of conversation between Corinne and her friends penetrated to Nancy's
rather confused understanding.
"Are all the nice boys back at Clinton Academy this half, do you know,
Corinne?"
"Don't ask me! I can't keep run of _all_ Dr. Dudley's boys," laughed
Miss Pevay.
"Well, I hope Bob Endress has come. He's certainly one nice boy," cried
another of the seniors.
"Why! he's only a child!" drawled another young lady. "If he is back
this fall it is only to begin his junior year."
"I don't care," said Corinne. "He really _is_ a nice boy. I agree with
Mary."
"Say! the Montgomery girl told me Bob came near being drowned this
summer. What do you know about that?"
"Oh, Carrie!"
"She had all the details, so I guess it's so. He is some sort of a
distant relative of hers----"
"I'd want the relationship to be mighty distant if I were Bob," laughed
the girl named Mary.
"Quite so," said the teller of the tale. "However, he went automobiling
with the Montgomerys through to Chicago. And on the road he fell into
some pond, or river, and he can't swim----"
"But he can skate--beautifully," sighed Corinne. "I hope there'll be
good skating this winter on Clinton River."
"Me, too! And me! Oh, I adore skating!" were the chorused exclamations
from the group.
Corinne now noted that Nancy had finished.
"Come! I've got to stow little 'greeny' away for the night," she said,
pinching Nancy's plump cheek. "Come on, kid! It'll soon be bedtime for
first-readers."
Nancy did not mind this playful reference to her juvenile state, it was
said so pleasantly. She followed Corinne docilely up the broad flight
into the west wing of the great building. Once it had been a private
residence; but it was big enough to be called a castle.
The rooms on the lower floor had not been much changed when Pinewood
Hall became a preparatory school for girls. But above the first story
the old partitions had been ripped out and the floors cut up on each
side of the main stairways into a single broad, T-shaped corridor and
many reasonably spacious bedrooms and studies.
One walked out of the corridor into the studies; the bedrooms were back
of these dens, with broad windows, overlooking the beautiful grounds.
On the first dormitory floor were the instructors' rooms, for the most
part. One lady teacher only slept on the second floor; above, the
seniors and juniors governed their own dormitories. By the time the
girls came to their last two years at Pinewood Hall, Madame Schakael
believed that they should be governed by honor solely.
The freshies were paired on the first dormitory floor--two girls in each
apartment. Number 30, Nancy found, was upon one of the "arms" of the
corridor, and a good way from any of the teachers' studies, and from the
main stairway.
When Corinne and Nancy came to Number 30 there was nobody in the study
or bedroom. The older girl snapped on the electric lights by pushing a
button in the wall beside the entrance door.
"Rathmore is your chum," said Corinne, lightly. "I hope you two girls
will get on well together. I like to have all the chums live together
without friction--for it is easier for me, and easier for the teachers.
"Now, Cora Rathmore has been here half a term already. Some of your
class came in last spring so as to take up certain studies to fit them
for the beginning of the fall work. I presume, from what Madame Schakael
says, that your school was a pretty good one, and that you were brought
along farther in your primary and grammar studies than some of the
others.
"However, Rathmore knows her way about. She--she's not a bad sort; but
she and some of her friends last spring made the former West Side
captain considerable trouble.
"So those girls who were bothersome," pursued Corinne, "can't room
together again this half. There! that is your side of the room. That's
your bed, and your cupboard and locker, and your dressing table. Keep
everything neat, Nancy. That's the first commandment at Pinewood Hall.
And the other commandments you can read on that framed list," and she
pointed to a brief schedule of rules and duties hanging on the wall of
the study.
Then the senior put her arm around the new girl and gave her a
resounding kiss upon her plump cheek.
"You're a nice little thing, I believe. Good-night!" she said, and ran
out of the room.
But she left Nancy Nelson feeling almost as though she had deliberately
deceived the senior. Would Corinne Pevay have been so friendly--and
kissed her--if she had been aware that Nancy was just "Miss Nobody from
Nowhere?"
After a little, however, the new girl opened her handbag and took out
her toilet articles and her, nightgown, robe, and slippers. She arranged
the brushes, and other things on the dressing table, and hung her robe
and gown in their proper place.
It was now nearly nine o'clock. She understood that, during term time,
at least, the freshman class were to be in bed at nine; and even the
seniors must have their lights out at ten o'clock.
She read the list of rules through carefully. They did not seem hard, or
arbitrary. Miss Prentice had been strict, indeed. To Nancy these
"commandments" seemed easily kept.
There were two small desks in the room. Nancy examined the one upon her
own side of the study and found only stationery, blank books, pencils,
and pen and ink. There were no books.
But she ventured to look in the other desk, which was not locked, and
saw that here were several text-books, evidently to be studied by the
freshmen this first year.
In each book was written the name of Cora Rathmore. It was an erect,
angular handwriting, and somehow Nancy drew from it that she would not
like the owner of the books.
And yet she wanted to like her. Nancy longed for a real chum. She wished
that her suspicions might prove to be unfounded, and that her roommate
might be a jolly, open-hearted girl who would like her, and----
"Well! perhaps you don't know that that is _my_ desk?" snapped a voice
suddenly, behind her.
Nancy dropped the book, startled. She wheeled to see confronting her,
just within the room, the black-eyed, thin-faced girl who had seemed on
the train to be Grace Montgomery's chief friend.
"Well! haven't you got anything to say?" demanded the sharp-voiced girl.
"Why, I wondered what our books were going to be like----"
"Now you know. Keep out of my desk hereafter," interposed the other
girl. "And please to inform me what you're doing in here, anyway?"
"Why, I--I have been chummed with you--if you are Cora Rathmore," said
Nancy.
"_You?_" shrieked the other. "No! it's not so! I won't have it! I was
just going to get my books and go to Grace's room----"
"Oh, I know nothing about _that_," said Nancy, hastily. "I only know
that Miss Pevay brought me to this room and said I must chum with the
girl who was here."
"It's not so! I don't believe you!" cried Cora. "And that stuck-up
thing,--that French-Canadian smartie!--just did it to be mean. I'm
going to Madame----"
Nancy really hoped she would. She hoped with all her heart that it would
prove a mistake that Cora Rathmore was chummed with her. She knew very
well now that her suspicions had justification in fact. This girl was a
most unpleasant roommate.
At that moment the door banged open and another girl came flying in.
"Oh, Cora! have you found out? We can't do it?"
"Found out what?" snapped Cora.
"We can't pick our rooms as we did last spring. Grace has been sent
clear over into the other corridor, and is paired with a greeny----Say,
who's _this_?"
"Oh, I don't know!" said Cora, sullenly sitting down. "It's just too
mean! I've got to stop here, I suppose."
"And they've taken Belle from me and given me Annie Gibbons," cried the
visitor. "And Annie snores--horridly!"
"It's a hateful place," snarled Cora Rathmore.
"I wish my folks hadn't sent me here," groaned the other.
"I'd run away--for half a cent," declared the Rathmore girl.
"Where would you run to?" demanded her friend.
"Anywhere. To the city. I don't care. Pinewood Hall isn't going to be
any fun at all, if we can't pair off as we choose."
"Who's your chum?" asked the visitor again, eyeing Nancy, who had
returned to her own side of the room and had turned her back to them.
"Oh, I don't know. Some _nobody_, of course!"
The words cut Nancy to the heart. The very phrase, uttered by chance,
was the one she had feared most in coming to Pinewood Hall.
"Oh," thought she, "if they say that of me already, what _will_ they say
when they find that I really have no home and no folks?"