It was seldom that Madame Schakael seemed so stern as on this occasion. She perched herself upon her cushioned chair behind the desk table in her inner office, while the three girls the senior and the two freshmen lined up before her.

“Now, Corinne, tell me all about it,” was her command to the older girl.

“I am not sure that I can tell you all, Madame,” said Corinne, slowly. “For I did not hear it all.”

But the black-eyed Cora was getting back her courage now, and she suddenly burst out:

“I can tell you, Madame!”

“Perhaps as it was your voice which I first heard you had better tell me your side of it, Miss Rathmore,” agreed the principal.

“There’s only one side to it, Madame!” exclaimed Cora. “I was just telling those girls and Miss Pevay, who interfered

“Corinne is the captain of the West Side. You belong on the West Side. By no possibility could your captain have interfered if you chose the public hall for any discussion,” said the Madame, with sudden sharpness. “I want all you freshmen to understand that: The school captains must be respected and obeyed.”

“Well I I didn’t mean to be disrespectful,” murmured Cora, suddenly abashed.

“Perhaps not. But, Miss Rathmore, I fancy you will have to watch yourself closely to correct a tendency in that direction,” observed the Madame, drily. “Now, you may continue your statement.”

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 principal. “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 nobody!” 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 principal’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 institution. 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 classes 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 principal, 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!” ejaculated 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 principal. “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 identity 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 nobody

“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 class. 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 class 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.

Jennie Bruce boldly sat beside her, too, although she belonged at another table. And they whispered together, and giggled, and were even reproved by one of the teachers which was likewise a new experience for Nancy, and perhaps did her no particular harm.

“Ah-ha, Miss Mousie!” said Corinne, pausing by the new chums as she made her tour of inspection, and pinching Nancy’s ear; “I see now I shall have both you and Bruce to watch. But don’t you two go too far.”

Really, a brand new existence had opened for Nancy. Jennie’s ready championship of her did much to influence the opinion of the other girls; and the story Grace Montgomery and Cora Rathmore spread regarding Nancy fell rather flat.

The Montgomery clique, after all, embraced only a very few of the freshman class and some half dozen or more sophs. The latter had no influence at all in Nancy’s class for, naturally, it was “war to the knife” between the freshies and the class immediately above them in the school.

Corinne, too, after the grand explosion in which the Madame herself had taken part, saw to it more particularly that the Montgomery crowd did not “pick on” Nancy. If Jennie was about, however, that was sufficient. Jennie Bruce would fight for her friend at the least provocation.

Yet, after all, Nancy was not entirely easy in her mind. That the story of her being a “mere nobody” had failed to make her ostracised by the better class of Pinewood Hall girls, was a delightful fact.

Yet the story was true. Nancy was nobody; as the Montgomery and Cora said, her parents might be people of no morals nor breeding. There might be some great shame connected with herself and her family.

The mystery of it all made Nancy very unhappy at times; but not so unhappy as before. Now she had a close friend with whom she could discuss the secret; and Jennie Bruce was just as deeply interested in Nancy’s affairs as was Nancy herself.

“Some day it will come all right, Nance,” the former assured her roommate. “Maybe you and I will find out the truth. Perhaps that O’Brien boy will help. I have great faith in Scorch, and I want to meet him.”

“Oh! do you suppose you and I could go to Cincinnati together!” gasped Nancy.

“Goody! It would be great!”

“And then you could see Scorch.”

“And I want to see that Mr. Gordon. I bet that lawyer knows more about you than he is willing to tell.”

“But perhaps he is doing his best for me, after all,” concluded Nancy, with a sigh.

Number 30, West Side, began to get a new reputation after Jennie came to it. In the first place, Jennie was one of those girls who bring from home to boarding school countless mementoes of their home life and of their family and friends.

Jennie’s photographs and funny pictures, and pennants, and all the other “litter” that a schoolgirl loves spilled over from her own bureau to Nancy’s, and not only was Jennie’s side of the den decorated, but there was plenty to decorate Nancy’s side.

No longer was Nancy’s dressing-case the most plainly furnished in the school. There were bows of ribbon, and bright calendar pictures, and photo-frames, and numberless other little keepsakes tacked to the wall on Nancy’s side.

Jessie Pease put her head into Number 30 a day or two after Jennie’s arrival, and exclaimed with delight:

“Ah-ha! now the dear bairn’s got a homey looking room, thanks be! It’s made my heart ache to see how barren the walls were. You’re a good girl, Janie Bruce, if you do make me a world of trouble.”

“Trouble! Trouble!” shouted Jennie. “How dare you say such a thing?” and then she danced around the good soul, clapping her hands and singing:

“Pease Porridge hot pease porridge cold
Pease porridge in the pot, nine days old!
Some like it hot some like it cold
But Jessie Pease of Pinewood never will be old!”

“Bless ye, Janie,” said the good Scotchwoman, “I hope I’ll never be any older than the youngest bairn who comes here to school.”

“Sure! you’re a regular kid!” declared Jennie, hugging her.

“My usefulness here will be all forbye when I can’t be a lassie wi’ other lassies,” declared the lodgekeeper’s wife, kissing both Jennie and Nancy and then going her way.

The pleasure of having Jennie Bruce in Number 30 instead of Cora Rathmore was no small thing to Nancy. In Jennie’s society she began to expand. She became, indeed, quite a different creature from the quiet, almost speechless girl who had heretofore crept about Pinewood Hall.

Girls of her own class, who had scarcely noticed Nancy before, suddenly found that she was a bright and cheerful body when once she was included in a group of her mates.

She had made a splendid mark in classes, and stood equally high in such athletics as Miss Etching encouraged. And on the ice she had shown herself to be the equal of many of the older girls.

Now, with the ban lifted from her recreation hours, Nancy could go on the river again. And skating was one of her favorite sports.

The weather had remained cold all this time and, when it snowed at all, there had been a high wind which blew the snow (for the most part) off the ice and so did not put a veto on skating.

Clinton River was frozen nearly a foot in depth. The ice harvest had begun, and it was not yet Christmas. But where the men cut for the huge icebarns was beyond Dr. Dudley’s Academy, and so did not trouble the girls of Pinewood Hall who desired to skate. Nor did it trouble the boys from the Academy, either; they were all glad to move up river for their ice sports.

Hockey was a favorite game of the boys, and Nancy one afternoon watched a match game between the crack team of the Academy and one made up of lads from Clintondale. Bob Endress captained the school team and, Nancy thought, covered himself with glory.

To Nancy’s secret disappointment Bob only bowed to her. He never skated with her again, although she saw him with Grace Montgomery and her friends.

Nancy wasn’t particularly enamored of boys; Jennie liked them better than Nancy did, and was frank to say so, for Jennie was somewhat of a tomboy and always played with her brothers and their friends when she was at home.

Bob Endress, however, had seemed to Nancy to be a particularly nice boy. And they had had a secret understanding together before Grace and Cora had found out about Higbee School.

Nancy said nothing to Jennie about it; but she wondered if Bob felt as the Montgomery clique did about her that she was a mere nobody and was really beneath his notice.

Of course, Nancy was only a young girl in her first year at Pinewood Hall; and Bob Endress was quite three years her senior. Even Corinne Pevay and Carrie Littlefield showed interest in Bob, although he was only a junior at Dr. Dudley’s school.

The girls had so many interests among themselves on the ice, however, that they did not seek the boys’ society. Besides, this was not altogether approved. Miss Etching was usually with the girls in the afternoon, while one of the instructors from the Academy skated with the boys.

Grace Montgomery made a great matter of Bob’s being her cousin. It was known to Miss Etching that the Senator and his wife approved of the intimacy of their daughter with the boy. Naturally Grace’s friends attracted Bob’s friends and there you have it!

The many girls of Pinewood Hall, however, who found delight in skating for the sake of the sport itself, welcomed Nancy as one of their own. They found she could skate splendidly with a partner, that she could cut figure eights, could do the “long roll,” and otherwise give a good account of herself on the ice.

So when it was suggested that there should be a skating contest on the river one evening just previous to the Christmas holidays, Nancy was urged to participate. Of course, the older girls expected to carry off the palm. Corinne Pevay came from Canada, and one or two other girls lived well up toward the line. So their winters were long and they were proficient in every winter sport before they came to Pinewood.

But Jennie urged Nancy to do her best in the long races.

“That’s where you will have ’em, Nance,” she declared. “Half of these big girls lose their breath after a little run.”

So Nancy entered for the two-mile race, which was the “big number” on the hastily-made-up program. The boys had helped them set stakes, the distance being ten laps around the course.

Although the moon was small, the stars were brilliant and on the ice everything was as plain as day. Miss Maybrick and Miss Meader helped the physical instructor; and those girls who did not take part in the “ice carnival,” as they laughingly called it, came down to the river to see the races.

Each class rooted for their own champions. Corinne and Carrie were of course favorites of the seniors; but the juniors were sure they had a champion in one of their number, and even the sophs shouted for Judy Craig and were willing to back her even against the Canadian senior who had, as Jennie Bruce declared, “been born on skates.”

“But just the same,” said Nancy’s roommate, “you stand a good chance in the straightaway races and in the two-mile. Don’t you lose courage, Nance. I’ve watched you and I say that the freshies can afford to cheer for you, just as the sophs are rooting for Judy.”

So Nancy went down to the ice that evening very much encouraged and more excited than she had ever been since coming to Pinewood Hall.