l, having hard work now to keep from
crying. The kind word moved her more than the neglect of the other
girls.

Corinne led the way to one of the doors and opened it composedly.
Through a richly furnished anteroom she preceded the new girl and
knocked lightly upon another doer.

"Enter!" responded a pleasant voice.

Corinne turned the knob, looked in, said "Good-evening!" brightly, and
then stood aside for Nancy to pass her.

"Another newcomer, Madame--Nancy Nelson."

"Come in, too, Corinne," said the pleasant voice.

Nancy passed through and saw the owner of the voice. She was a little
lady--a veritable doll-like person. She sat on a high chair at a
desk-table, with her tiny feet upon a hassock, for they could not reach
the floor.

"Come hither, Nancy Nelson. You are the girl of whom my good friend,
Miss Prentice, of the Higbee School, wrote me? I am glad to see you,
child," declared Madame Schakael.

Her hair was a silvery gray, but there was a lot of it, and her
complexion was as rosy as Nancy's own. She must have passed the
half-century mark some time before, but the principal of Pinewood Hall
betrayed few marks of the years in her face.

She had shrewd gray eyes, however, and rather heavy brows. Nancy thought
at once that no girl would undertake to take advantage of Madame
Schakael, despite her diminutive size. Those eyes could see right
through shams, and her lips were firm.

She took Nancy's hand and drew the girl around to her side. There she
studied the newcomer's face earnestly, and in silence.

"We have here one of the sensitive ones, Corinne," she said, at last,
speaking to the senior instead of to Nancy. "But she is 'true blue.' She
will make a fine Pinewood girl--yes, yes!

"We will try to make her happy here--though she does not look entirely
happy now," and Madame laughed in a quick, low way that pleased the new
girl vastly.

"Ah! there she smiles. Nancy Nelson, you look much prettier when you
smile--cultivate smiling, therefore. That must be your first lesson here
at Pinewood Hall.

"Happiness is born of making other people happy. See if you can't do
someone a good turn every day. You'll get along splendidly that way,
Nancy.

"Now, as for the lessons--you stood well in your classes at Higbee. You
will find it no harder to stand well here, I am sure. I shall expect to
hear good reports of you. Classes begin day after to-morrow.

"Meanwhile, make yourself at home about the Hall; lear