A Little Miss Nobody Part 45

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 "n.o.body?" Nancy knew that she was popular enough with her cla.s.smates to win the high position of cla.s.s president twice in succession.

"Let the little dogs howl and snarl," Jennie said. "What do _we_ care?"

Yet the slur upon her ident.i.ty 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 soph.o.m.ores, 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 cla.s.s. 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 cla.s.ses. The teachers liked her and most of her own cla.s.s 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-cla.s.s 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 cla.s.s--was quite the c.o.c.k 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 cla.s.s?" 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 pa.s.sed, 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!"

CHAPTER XXVI

MR. GORDON AGAIN

Once that summer Nancy plucked up courage to go in to Cincinnati from Jennie's home, and called upon Mr. Gordon. She did not tell him to expect her, but bearded the lion as she had once before.

Jennie went with her, of course; only she remained waiting in a tea-room near the big office building where the lion had his lair. Even Scorch was amazed to see Nancy Nelson, dressed in her best and outwardly composed, walk into the outer office of Ambrose, Necker & Boles.

"Such a shock!" gasped Scorch, pretending to faint away in his chair beside the gate in the railing. "And, say! Miss Nancy, how tall you're getting!"

"So are you, Scorch," she told him, holding out her hand.

"And good-looking--My eye!"

"Your hair is a whole shade darker, Scorch."

"You couldn't say nothing handsomer, Miss--not if you tried for a week,"

declared the office boy, shaking hands vigorously. "What's turned up?

Are you going to crack the whip over Old Gordon?"

"How you talk, Scorch! You mustn't be so disrespectful. And why should I crack any whip over Mr. Gordon?"

"You will when you get the best of him--eh?"

"I certainly shall not. He--he's been very kind to me, as far as I know."

"Go in and see if he's kind now," grinned the red-haired one.

"Oh, no, Scorch! You announce me."