The most beautiful sight she had ever seen! That was what Nancy Nelson enthusiastically called it when, from the end of the long line of girls, walking two by two, she saw the flower-crowned seniors winding from the Hall, through the sun-spattered grounds, to the old brick church on the highway, beyond the estate, where the baccalaureate sermon was always preached.

No girl, she was sure, could ever be disloyal to Pinewood Hall, after having once seen the graduation procession. And then, the graduating girls themselves! Why, they were all ready for college!

How much they must know! Nancy sighed with envy, and hoped heartily that she would be able to remain at Pinewood long enough to be a chief figure in a similar spectacle.

Corinne Pevay looked like an angel. And Carrie Littlefield read the valedictory. To the mind of the girl just finishing her freshman year, these great girls real young ladies, now! were so far above her that it almost made her blink to look at them.

At Higbee School class after class had been graduated above Nancy, and she had seen the day approach even her own graduation without much excitement. But this was an entirely different occasion.

She had something to look forward to this summer. At the break-up for the long vacation she was going to have just as much part in the bustle as anyone.

Jessie Pease had already looked over her wardrobe, and there were several new summer dresses, including swimming and boating costumes. Mr. Gordon had sent the extra money needed without comment or objection.

And now Nancy’s trunk was packed, and her bag, and with Jennie Bruce she was ready to take the first ’bus that left for the Clintondale station in the morning.

How different from her coming to the school in September!

She was at the head of her class. The freshmen had given her an overwhelming vote for class president for the soph. year. And Corinne had prophesied that she would yet be captain of the West Side when she grew to be a senior.

Girls ran to kiss her before she got into the ’bus, and stood and waved their hands after her as it rolled away. And when she had arrived at the Hall, she stood on the porch in the rain without a soul to speak to her. Ah! this change was enough to turn the head of even a sensible girl.

However, Nancy was much too affectionate by nature and tender of other people’s feelings to be made haughty or vain by her schoolmates’ kindness to her. It continued to be a wonder to her how a “mere nobody” had managed to gain such popularity.

And she was welcomed in Jennie’s home as though she really was one of the family.

Jennie’s home was a lovely, rambling old house, standing well back from the High Street in its own grounds, and affording ample space for the young folk to have fun in innumerable ways.

There was a lake not far away; and Mr. Bruce owned a pair of ponies that even the younger children could drive. There was a trip almost every day to the swimming place; then there were picnics, and visiting back and forth with other girls whom Jennie and her sisters knew. And nowhere did Nancy hear a word about her not being “just as good” as her comrades.

The mystery of her identity, however, was seldom buried very deep under other thoughts. And Jennie retained her interest in the puzzle, too.

Nancy had written to Scorch O’Brien to arrange for a meeting; as the red-headed youth seemed too bashful to come out to Jennie’s house, the girls planned to meet him in the city. They got a most mysterious note in reply:

“Dear Miss Nancy:

“You and your friend meet me at 307 Payne Street on Saturday afternoon. You can whistle outside; I’ll hear you. Can’t see you at Old Gordon’s office for fear of spies. Did you ever see the Gray Man? He and Old G. has had a fight about you. It was a peach! They says when thieves fall out honest folks gets what’s coming to them. Mebbe you’ll get yours.

“Most respectfully yours,
“Scorch O’Brien.”

Jennie’s big brother John, who had already taken some interest in Nancy’s mystery, took the girls to town with him. His employer, who knew Mr. Gordon, had never been able to get the lawyer to talk about Nancy Nelson, although he had started the subject with him several times.

The girls did a little shopping for themselves, and some errands for Mrs. Bruce, and then had a nice luncheon. It was past noon then and they were sure that Scorch would be at home for it was evidently his home address that he had given to them.

They asked a policeman how to find Payne Street and he kindly put them on a car which took the two girls to the corner of that thoroughfare. It was a street of small cottages, and empty lots, and goats, and many, many dirty-faced children. Some of these last ran after Nancy and Jennie and made faces at them as they sought out Number 307.

“But as long as the goats don’t run after us and make faces, I don’t care,” declared Jennie.

Just then one nanny looked over a fence and said “Ba-a-a-a!” in a very loud tone, and Jennie almost jumped into the middle of the street.

“Come out! Come on!” she cried, urging her friend onward. “Goats are always butting in.”

A derisive chorus of “ba’s” followed them as they hurried along the street.

“There’s 307!” cried Nancy, pointing.

The cottage in question was a rather neater-looking place than its neighbors. There was a fence which really was strong enough, and had pickets enough (if some of them were barrel-staves) to keep wandering goats out of the yard. There was a garden at the back, and a bit of grass in front, with a path bordered by half bricks painted with whitewash a dazzling white.

The porch and steps were scrubbed clean, too; it might have been a sign of Mrs. O’Brien’s trade, that porch.

There were ducks, and geese, and poultry, too; but all fenced off with wire from the front and from the garden. And the girls heard the hungry grunting of a pig in its sty.

There was a good deal of noise within the house, too. The girls could hear childish voices in a great hullabaloo, a good-natured, but broadly Irish voice chiming in with them, and likewise a scampering across the floor which must have made the cottage rock again.

“He’d never hear us whistle in the world!” giggled Jennie.

“How funny we’d look standing here on the street and whistling, anyway!” replied Nancy.

“And then, I never could whistle,” confessed Jennie. “Somehow I can’t get my lips to pucker right.”

“Why! neither can I!” cried Nancy. “I didn’t think of that. We couldn’t signal to Scorch by whistling, anyway.”

“Unless we borrowed a policeman’s whistle or a postman’s,” said Jennie. “What’ll we do?”

“Come on and knock,” said Nancy. “We can make them hear somehow.”

Which proved to be true. The girls made those inside hear at their first summons. Silence fell upon the O’Brien cottage on the instant.

There might have been some whisperings and soft commands; but then, in a moment, a good-looking, black-haired girl, in a clean apron and with her sleeves rolled up over her dimpled elbows, opened the front door.

“You’re Norah O’Brien, I know,” said Nancy, putting out her hand.

“You’re a good guesser, Miss,” returned the girl, who might have been sixteen or seventeen. “And who might you be and the other pretty lady?”

“Why didn’t Scorch tell you

“Sarsfield, do ye mane?” asked Norah, her eyes twinkling.

“I mean Scorch O’Brien,” declared Nancy.

“Patrick Sarsfield is his name,” declared Scorch’s big sister. “Here! P. Sarsfield O’Brien!” she shouted into the house. “It’s coompany ye’ve got.”

“Gee!” drawled the voice of the red-haired youth. “What did they come to the door for?” and he made his appearance, looking very sheepish.

“How could you expect us to whistle, Scorch?” demanded Nancy, while Jennie bubbled over with laughter. “Girls can’t whistle.”

“I never thought,” admitted Scorch, shaking hands awkwardly with both visitors.

“Bring thim inter the house, P. Sarsfield,” said Norah. “Have ye no manners?”

“There’s too many kids,” said the tousled Scorch, who had evidently been playing with the younger children, too.

“I’ll shoo ’em out into the yard,” promised Norah, and went away upon this errand while Scorch ushered his visitors into the tiny front room, which was evidently kept shut up save when the priest came, or some special visitor.

The girls sat down on the stiffly-placed chairs and looked about at the portraits of Mr. and Mrs. O’Brien when they were first married he very straight and stern-looking in his policeman’s uniform, with very yellow buttons, and Mrs. O’Brien with very red cheeks and much yellow jewelry painted into the picture by the artist at the bride’s request. Mrs. O’Brien had never owned any trinket of more value than her wedding ring!

There was a wreath of everlastings in a glass case, which had lain on the good man’s coffin. And there was a framed “In Memoriam” card on the wall, together with a “Rock of Ages” worked on cardboard in red worsted by Norah herself, no doubt.

Everything was as clean as could be, however. And Nancy, on her part, was much more interested in the change she saw in Scorch, than in anything else.

“Why, Scorch! how you’ve grown!” she exclaimed.

“That’s in spite of the way they overwork me at the office,” he replied, grinning.

“And you’ve had that tooth put in!”

“Yep. Ye see, missing that tooth, when I bit into anything it seemed like I was tryin’ to make a sandwich look like a Swiss cheese. It troubled my aesthetic taste. So I let the tooth carpenter build me another.”

“And your hair stays lots flatter than it did,” declared Nancy.

“Yep. Sweet oil. It works all right.”

“Nonsense, Scorch! You talk just as slangily as ever.”

“But he writes a lot better than he did,” said Jennie, suddenly. “Did you notice in his last letter?”

“You’re practising, Scorch,” said Nancy.

“I’m goin’ to night school, Miss Nancy,” admitted the boy, with a grin.

“That’s a good boy!” exclaimed Nancy.

“Well, learning is all right even if a feller’s goin’ to be a detective,” declared Scorch, earnestly.

“And I expect you’re learnin’ a lot yourself, Miss Nancy?”

“Some,” returned his friend.

“She’s at the top of her class,” Jennie declared, proudly. “Oh, she has us all beaten, Scorch.”

“Sure,” he agreed. “I knowed how ’twould be. There ain’t nobody going to get the best of Miss Nancy.”

“Unless it’s that horrid Mr. Gordon,” suggested Jennie, bringing the conversation around to the subject uppermost in all their minds.

“Ha!” exclaimed Scorch, looking mysterious at once, and hitching his chair nearer to the girls. “Were you on to what I said in my letter?”

“About the gray man? Yes!” cried Jennie.

“Did you ever see him?” asked Scorch.

“I I don’t know that I have,” said Nancy, slowly.

“He ain’t been snooping around that school?”

“Why, I haven’t noticed anybody like that.”

“A big man all in gray. He’s some nobby dresser! I thought he was the President or Secretary of State at least when he came into the office and asked for Old Gordon. I takes him in at once.

“Now, they knowed each other well, those two did. Old Gordon was startled and he tried to heave up out of his chair. But you know how he is,” added Scorch, with scorn. “Takes him ten minutes to work his way out from between the arms when he wants to get up. Don’t know what he would do if there was a fire any time.”

“Why, Scorch!” admonished Nancy.

“Well,” said the boy, “he tries to heave up, and can’t, and sings out:

“‘Why, Jim!’

“‘Hello, Hen,’ says the man in gray.

“I hadn’t shut the door quite. Sometimes I don’t,” admitted the boy, with a wink. “I hears the gray feller say:

“’I just got back from Clintondale, Hen. What did you send that girl up there for, I want to know?’

“‘What girl?’ asks Old Gordon.

“‘Nancy Nelson,’ says the gray man

“‘Sh!’ sputters Gordon. ’Shut the door, Jim, if you’re here to talk about her.’

“But before the other feller shut the door I heard him say:

“‘Wouldn’t no other school but Pinewood Hall do for her?’ and Old Gordon snaps right back at him:

“‘Nothing’s too good for her, Jim, and you know it.’

“Well!” continued Scorch. “I could have bit off the doorknob; I was so mad when they shut the door on me. I couldn’t hear another thing.

“The gray man was in there a long time. When he come out he looked mad, too. I didn’t hear Old Gordon’s buzzer for a long time, and so I slipped down to his door and tried it.

“When I peeked in, what do you think?” asked Scorch, mysteriously.

“What was it?” gasped Nancy.

“I never could guess!” exclaimed the eager Jennie.

“The old man had his head down on the desk, and his shoulders was heavin’ like he was cryin’. Now, what do you know about that?” demanded the boy, with the air of one throwing a bomb.

The girls were speechless with surprise.