GETTING ON
Jennie Bruce did not go home that Christmas. Instead, she remained at
Pinewood Hall with Nancy and was "coached" for the after-New Year exams.
So she was able to send home better reports for her first half-year's
work than she had had before.
Nancy took to study naturally; it was a "grind" for Jennie, and she was
frank to admit it.
Nancy stuck to her books just as closely after Thanksgiving as she had
before; but as a sophomore she had more freedom than was usually granted
to the freshies. Therefore she was able, if she wished, to enter more
fully into the social gayeties of her classmates.
And after the very successful masque on Thanksgiving Eve, she could not
escape Bob Endress altogether. He _was_ a nice boy, and Nancy liked him.
Besides, there were two topics that drew the two together.
Bob never got over talking about that August afternoon, that seemed so
long ago, when Nancy had helped to rescue him from the millrace. On the
other hand, Nancy was quite as grateful to him for saving her and Jennie
from the river.
So, as well as might be, Bob and Nancy were very good friends. Bob would
be graduated in June, and at that same time Nancy would become a
full-fledged junior. Bob was going to Cornell; but that was not too far
away, as he often told her, for him to come back to Clintondale to see
both the girls and boys there.
The only thing that troubled Nancy about this semi-intimacy between
herself and the Academy boy was the fact that Grace Montgomery was so
angry. She seemed to have an idea that the only person who had any right
to speak to her cousin was herself.
Nancy was not so afraid to demand her rights as she once had been. If
Grace and Cora scowled at her, and belittled her behind her back, Nancy
had learned to go serenely on her way and pay no attention to them.
What if they _did_ say she was a "nobody?" Nancy knew that she was
popular enough with her classmates to win the high position of class
president twice in succession.
"Let the little dogs howl and snarl," Jennie said. "What do _we_ care?"
Yet the slur upon her identity could always hurt Nancy Nelson. Many a
night, after Jennie was sound asleep in her bed, Nancy bedewed her
pillow with tears.
She reviewed at these times all the important incidents in her short
life.
The few brief notes that Mr. Gordon had sent to her she treasured
carefully. She could not admire that peculiar gentleman; yet he was the
one link that seemed to bind her to her mysterious fortune.
She received characteristic notes from Scorch O'Brien, now and then;
they got past the Madame's desk unopened because they were addressed on
the typewriter, and purported to come from the office of Ambrose, Necker
& Boles.
So the weeks sped. Spring came and then the budding summer, and again
the long line of white-robed girls walked the winding paths of Pinewood
Hall. The school year seemed to have fairly flown and Nancy and her
mates found themselves facing the fact that they were no longer
sophomores, but juniors!
The Montgomery clique "got busy" again and tried to balk the election of
Nancy for a third time to the office of president of the class. To be
president in junior year was just as good as an appointment to the
captaincy of a Side in senior year.
But Nancy had kept on the even tenor of her way. Her marks were just as
good as ever, and she stood at the head of most of her classes. The
teachers liked her and most of her own class considered her a bright and
particular star. So there was little chance of Grace and Cora
accomplishing their ends.
The graduating exercises at Pinewood occurred the day before that same
ceremony at Dr. Dudley's school. The older boys of the Academy were
usually invited guests at the exercises of the Hall; and some of the
first and second-class girls remained over a day after graduation to see
their friends in the boys' school graduated.
Nancy and Jennie received each an engraved card requesting "the honor of
their presence" at Clinton Academy, with Bob Endress's name written with
a flourish in the lower corner.
So, although Nancy was going home with Jennie for the summer once more,
they begged the Madame's permission to remain over for the boys'
graduation.
And how angry Grace Montgomery was when she learned that Bob had invited
Nancy and her chum! Bob had stood well in his class--was quite the cock
of the walk, indeed--and Grace wanted to show him off to the older girls
as her especial property. She worked the cousinly relationship to the
limit.
And after the exercises, when Bob came down from the platform
particularly to lead Nancy and Jennie to his parents and introduce them,
Grace and Cora went away in anything but a sweet frame of mind.
Mr. and Mrs. Endress spoke very kindly to Nancy. Bob, it seemed, had
often spoken of the girl whose quick wit had saved him from the millrace
almost two years before.
"And you are in Grace Montgomery's class?" observed Mrs. Endress. "It is
odd we have never heard Grace speak of you, Nancy. And where will you
spend your summer?"
Nancy told her how kind the Bruces were to invite her for the long
vacation.
"I hope we shall see you both," said Mrs. Endress, nodding kindly to
Jennie, too, "before fall. We are not so very far from Holleyburg, you
know. Ah! here come Grace and the Senator."
Nancy and her chum fell back. A tall man dressed in a gray frock coat
and broad-brimmed hat--the garments so often affected by the Western
politician--was pacing slowly up the aisle with Grace and Cora.
He was in gray all over, from hat to spats, save that his tie had a
crimson spot in it--a very beautiful ruby pin.
"My goodness me, Nance! The Man in Gray!" whispered Jennie, chuckling.
"What's that?" gasped Nancy.
"Why, you remember the man Scorch told us of?"
"What man?"
"The man in gray who came to see your guardian, Mr. Gordon?"
"Oh! Well," and Nancy recovered her composure. "I guess Grace
Montgomery's father has nothing to do with _me_. But I have seen him
before."
"You have?" returned Jennie, in turn surprised.
"Yes. Last year just about this time. He came to the Hall to see Grace.
I wonder----"
She did not finish. She wondered if the Senator would remember her. He
did. But to Nancy's confusion he scowled at her as he passed, and did
not speak.
"My!" murmured Jennie in her chum's ear. "He's just as unpleasant as his
daughter; isn't he? I guess Grace comes by _her_ mean disposition
honestly enough!"