ding them a little more in a day or two for their return home.
She took the money--two or three dollars, left from the ten which Alma
had borrowed from her,--and began to change into her suit, thinking,
meanwhile, with a smile of incredulity, of the imprudence of sending
herself and Alma to one of the very schools where their poverty would
be contrasted with the abundance of Mildred Lloyds and Katherine
Leonards.

When she was ready for town, she went to Miss Leland's office, and told
her simply that she had just received a letter from her mother which
made it necessary to go to the city without delay. Miss Leland gave
the consent, which Nancy, in her excited state of mind, was ready to go
with or without. She caught the next train to New York, and by
one-thirty was in the Grand Central Station, wondering where on earth,
now that she was there, she would be able to get the money on the ring.
She had a vague idea that the only possible place would be some
pawn-shop, and she had read in Nicholas Nickleby that one can tell a
pawn-shop by three golden balls hanging in front of it, and also that
one would be likely to find it only in a squalid section of the
business district. The dealer would certainly be Jewish, and he would
in all probability not give her a tenth of what the ring was worth.
None of these thoughts were likely to raise her spirits at all, and,
when at length she found herself outside a dirty little shop on lower
Sixth Avenue, gazing in upon a window display of dusty violins and
guitars, travelling bags and tawdry jewelry, while above her the
traditional golden balls creaked in a sharp wind, her courage all but
failed her. She was frankly terrified by the sordid strangeness of her
environment, by the dirty, sodden loafers that shuffled past her, and
by the thought of haggling for money over the counter of that dingy and
even sinister-looking little shop. At length, however, she plucked up
courage and, with her heart in her throat, entered.

The front part of the shop was empty and very dark. At the back was a
swinging door, leading into another room, from which issued the sound
of voices of two men. The little bell over the front door had rung as
Nancy entered, to apprise the shopkeeper of a customer, and under the
swinging door she saw a pair of shuffling feet moving toward it. The
shopkeeper emerged, followed by the other man, who was evidently a
customer come to make a purchase of some antique pi