for all anybody knows," returned Cora.

"You haven't any people, and you stayed in that Higbee School at Maiden
all the year round--vacations and all. The girls didn't like you there
any more than they do here.

"Ha! Miss Nobody from No-place-at-all! that's what you are!" sneered
Nancy's roommate. "How do you expect the nice girls here at Pinewood
Hall will want to associate with you?

"And let me tell you, Miss, that _I_ refuse to room with you another
day. I shall tell Madame Schakael so right now!" concluded Cora, her
face very red and her black eyes flashing angrily.

CHAPTER XVII

A RIFT IN THE CLOUDS

None of the other girls had taken part in this discussion; but they all
chanced to be members of the party that had partaken of the famous
spread in Number 30 when Nancy's money paid for the goodies out of the
enjoyment of which she had been crowded.

They were all, save Cora, paying the price, like Nancy, of being found
out of their rooms after curfew by the principal of Pinewood Hall. All
had suffered alike. Cora had been the only one to escape.

As it chanced, Cora had _not_ been out of her room. The girls were not
punished for eating ice cream and macaroons in secret, and none of them
had been questioned about the incident save Nancy herself.

They had all, however, urged by Cora and Grace Montgomery, been sure
that Nancy had "got even" by reporting them to the teachers. Maybe, if
Cora had not so urged this--had not been so confident of Nancy's crime,
in fact--the other girls might have stopped to think that _she_ was
being punished equally with themselves, and that only Cora had escaped.

Just the same, some of them might on this evening have taken Nancy's
part had not Cora Rathmore made so much of the report upon Nancy's
character that Grace Montgomery had received from a friend in Malden.

Nobody had seen the letter (which came under cover for Grace from her
sister at home, and was therefore not examined by Madame Schakael) save
Grace herself and Cora. The latter had flown into a passion immediately,
and had declared that she would no longer remain in the same room with a
"charity foundling."

Without stopping to think, these other girls were carried away by Cora's
eloquence. When Nancy turned to face them from the lower stair of the
flight leading up to the West Side dormitories, she was like a sheep
cornered by a pack of dogs.

The shrill voice of the angry Cora carried much farther