and
flushed face and went down to supper without seeing Cora again.

She did not sit near the Montgomery clique at table, anyway; but she
heard them talking and laughing during the meal, and afterward some of
them passed where Nancy sat and looked at her oddly.

None of them spoke to her. All of a sudden they had dropped her again
and she was just as friendless as she had been before Cora Rathmore
suggested the secret supper.

When she went back to Number 30, however, Cora followed her.

"Now, I want to know just what you mean to do, Miss?" she said, standing
inside the door and scowling at Nancy.

"What about?"

"About the supper to-night."

"You certainly don't need _me_ at the supper," observed Nancy, quietly.

"I should hope not! But we don't propose to have you run to the teachers
and give our secrets away."

Nancy started up from her chair and advanced a step toward her
tormentor. She really had it in her mind to box Cora's ears--and the
black-eyed girl knew it.

"Don't you dare touch me!" she cried, shrinking back.

"Then don't you dare suggest that I'd be a telltale," warned Nancy. "I
leave that to you."

"Oh, you do!"

Nancy was silent, and Cora calmed down.

"Then you'll go out for the evening?" she asked, at last.

"Gladly," said Nancy.

"Mabel and Hilary say you can stay in 38."

"Very well."

"And of course you are not going to be mean about your share of the
goodies?" asked Cora, slily.

Nancy wanted to say that it seemed to her _all_ the goodies were hers.
But she only tossed Cora the key of her closet.

"I hope you'll have a good time," she said, in a low voice. "But if I
were you, Cora, and had treated anybody as meanly as you have me, I
could _never_ have a good time."

"Pooh!" replied Cora, insolently. Such considerations made no impression
on her. She only thought that Nancy was "too easy for anything," and
laughed and joked about her to Grace Montgomery.

Nancy would not cry before her roommate. She spent the evening as usual
in apparently close application to the lessons for the next day;
scarcely a word was said in Number 30 until curfew at nine. The other
girls kept entirely away from the room that evening. Going back and
forth might have drawn the suspicion of Miss Maybrick to that particular
dormitory.

At bedtime the two girls occupying Number 30 undressed and got into bed
as usual. The electric lights went out on that floor. The corridors were
lighted only by