"Yah! you're too easy on him," growled Scorch, and went off to do as he was bid. When he came back he didn't look very pleasant.

"He says you can come in," snapped Scorch.

"What's the matter?" asked Nancy, a little fearfully.

"He acts like a bear with a sore head trying to open a honey tree. He'll eat you alive, Miss Nancy."

"All right. The banquet might as well begin right now," returned the girl, bound not to show how shaky she really was.

So she walked directly to Mr. Gordon's door, knocked lightly, and without waiting for any encouragement, walked in upon the big man in the armchair before the flat table.

Again he was silent, but Nancy knew that he was looking at her in the mirror. Nancy was very glad, for a moment, that she was looking her best. She flushed a little, took another step forward, and said:

"How do you do, Mr. Gordon?"

"What do you want now?" demanded the lawyer, ungraciously.

"I want you to see me and tell me if you are satisfied with my progress, sir," she said, boldly, as she had intended.

"Humph! I receive reports from the woman who runs that school."

"But you don't know how I look--how much I've grown."

"Come around here, then, and let's look at you," he growled, although he had been staring at her, she knew, since the moment she entered the office.

His big face was quite as expressionless as it had been nearly two years before when she first remembered having seen it. If the little eyes showed any expression when she first entered it was now hidden.

"You look like a well-grown girl--for your age," he said, with some hesitation. "What do you want?"

"To know if you can tell me anything more about myself--or my people--or what is to become of me when my schooling is done?"

"I can tell you nothing," he replied, his brows drawing together.

"I have learned typewriting, and I am excellent in spelling, and Miss Meader is teaching me stenography," she said, simply. "If--if the money should--should stop coming any time, I thought I would better know how to go about supporting myself."

"Ha!" He stared at her then with some emotion which sent a quick wave of color into his unhealthy cheek.

"What's that for?" he demanded, at last.

"What is what for, sir?"

"Your getting ready to earn your livelihood?"

"You say you do not know anything about the source of my income. It may stop any time."

"Well?"

"Then wouldn't it be necessary for me to go to work?"

"You wouldn't want to take money from _me_, then?" he snapped.

"Why, I--I--You say you're not even my guardian. I've no reason to expect anything from you if the money stops coming. Isn't that so?"

"Independent--eh?" he said, with a brief chuckle.

"I hope to be able to get along when I have to."

"_When_ you have to?"

"_If_ I have to, then," she said, nodding.

"Well! Maybe you're right. No knowing what might happen," he said, as though ruminating. "Say! Anybody ever talk to you about this money I have to spend on you?"

"No-o, sir. Only my chum and I talk about it," said Nancy, slowly.

"Curious, I suppose?"

"Yes, sir," replied Nancy, slowly. "And yet, it is more than curiosity.

Suppose my--mother was alive--or, my father----"

"Ha!"

Mr. Gordon pa.s.sed a big hand over his big face. He smoothed out something there--either a wry smile or a spasm of pain.

"Suppose, instead, you had a bad-tempered step-mother, or a drunken brute of an uncle, or a miser of a grandfather, or some other evilly-conditioned relative. Wouldn't you rather be as you are than to know such relatives?"

He looked at her sharply.

"We-ell--yes--perhaps----"

"Ha! you don't know how well off you are," grunted Mr. Gordon. "Well!

I'm busy. What more do you want?"

"No--nothing, sir," said Nancy, disappointedly.

"Want some more money for your vacation? Those Bruce people must be very fond of you to keep you so long for nothing."

"They are very kind."

"There is money here for you if you want it," said the lawyer, carelessly. "You want nothing?"

"I--I'd like to see Miss Trigg again. She was kind to me--in her way."

"Who is Miss Trigg?" he demanded.

Nancy explained. He reached into his pocket, selected some bills, and gave her more money than she had ever had at one time before.

"Go on back there to Malden and see your old teacher, if you like. Take the Bruce girl with you. Now, good-bye. I'm busy."