r not, she commanded money. _That_ was something.

Of course, the other girls at Higbee had always looked down upon her and
considered her "a charity scholar;" but Nancy believed that at Pinewood
Hall she could hold up her head with the best.

Nobody would know her there. She would begin a fresh page of her
history. She would make the girls love her for herself; it would not
matter there that she had no near relatives. Mr. Henry Gordon, her
guardian, must know all about her, and with regard to this gentleman the
girl had a very grave determination in her mind--a determination which
she did not confide even to Miss Trigg.

Nancy Nelson meant to see and speak with the lawyer before she went to
Pinewood Hall.

Whether he wanted to or not, Mr. Gordon must tell her something about
herself. If she had relatives living she wanted to know, at least,
_why_ they were ashamed of her. Or, if she was merely the ward of an
estate, she wanted to know what the estate was--and how big it was.

The girl had thought so much about her equivocal position that her
future troubled her. If there was just enough money to give her a
college education, she wanted to know it. If she must prepare herself
for taking some place at the end of her schooldays in the work-a-day
world, she wanted to know that, too.

These were practical thoughts for so young a girl; but Nancy Nelson
_was_ practical, despite her imagination.

She had already looked up Clintondale on the map, and upon the railroad
time-table. It was half a day's ride east of Malden, and Cincinnati was
one of the points where she changed cars.

Although she had never traveled by train herself, Nancy had heard the
other girls exchanging experiences, and she knew that she could get a
"stop-over" from the conductor of the train.

She had seen one of Mr. Gordon's letters which he had written Miss
Prentice; the principal had shown it to her.

At that time the girl had memorized the street and number printed at the
top of the lawyer's stiffly-worded communication. She would never forget
"No. 714 South Wall Street."

_That_ was the one secret Nancy Nelson kept hidden within her heart all
that long summer while she waited with Miss Trigg, the secretary and
general utility teacher, for the return of the principal of Higbee
School and the beginning of her new life.

Miss Trigg tried to be nice to her; indeed, she _was_ nice to her after
a fashion. But Miss Trigg's pleasures were between