ess. She
knew of no reason why she should be frightened.

Surely her guardian must wish to see her! He probably was a very busy
man--perhaps a man without a family. Maybe he lived at a hotel where he
could not have his ward come to see him. That was why she had had to
spend her vacations heretofore at Malden. Nancy thought of these things,
and began to take courage.

She glanced along the corridor. "To the right," the elevator boy had
said. She took a few uncertain steps and came opposite Room 1231. Room
1244 must be near.

She persevered, walking almost on tiptoe so as not to awaken the echoes
of the lofty corridor, and quickly came before the door numbered 1244.
Stenciled upon it was the firm name: "Ambrose, Necker & Boles,
Attorneys."

There was nothing about Mr. Gordon. His name did not appear, and she was
not sure now that she had reached the goal.

She turned the knob with a flutter at her heart, and stepped into the
office. She found herself immediately in a sort of fenced-off stall,
with a glass partition on one hand, through which she saw many desks
and typewriter tables, at which a score of men and girls were busy.

Directly before her, however, was a gate in the railing and beside the
gate--and evidently the Cerberus of the way--was a small, thin boy
sitting at a small desk, with his legs wound around his chair legs like
immature pythons with blue worsted bodies.

He was supposed to be doing something with a pile of papers and long
envelopes; but the truth was he had rigged, with rubber bands, a
closely-printed, "smootchy" looking paper-backed storybook before him on
the desk, so that on the instant Nancy approached, the rubbers snapped
the book back under the desk lid out of sight.

He looked up with little, red-lidded eyes, grinning queerly at her.

"Gee!" he gasped under his breath. "I thought it was the boss." Then
aloud he demanded, with hauteur: "Who do you wish to see, lady?"

Now Nancy had not been used to being addressed in so cavalier a manner,
and for a moment she did not know how to reply. But in that moment she
took a mental picture of the boy that she was not likely to forget.

Besides being diminutive and fleshless, his features were very small
and very, very sharp. The generous hand of Nature had sprinkled freckles
across his nose. He had lost a front tooth, which fact made his smile
perfectly "open."

His watery blue eyes twinkled with mischief. His grin wrinkled up his
pretern