He was just as brusk and as brief of speech as he had been before. Nancy went away, again deeply disappointed. But she and Jennie went to Malden that week and visited Miss Trigg at Higbee School. Miss Prentice was with a party visiting the Yosemite; but poor Miss Trigg never got away from the Endowment.

The good, wooden, middle-aged woman was really glad to see the girl who had spent so many tedious summer vacations in her care. She tried to be tender and affectionate to Nancy; but the poor lady didn't know how.

The girls had a nice time about Malden, however. Nancy took her chum to the millpond, where the water-lilies grew, and showed her where Bob Endress had come so near being drowned in the millrace.

Jennie grew very romantic over this place.

"Just think, Nance! Suppose, years and years from now, after you've finished at college, and Bob Endress has got through college, too, you should come here to see Miss Trigg, and he should come here, too, and you should meet right here walking in this path.

"Wouldn't that be just like a storybook?"

"Nonsense, Jen!" exclaimed Nancy, laughing.

But sometimes, after all, the story books are like real life. And if Nancy had had fairy gla.s.ses that she might look ahead the "years and years" Jennie had spoken of, how amazed she would have been to see two figures--identical with her own and Bob's--walking here in the twilight!

But girls of the age of Nancy Nelson and Jennie Bruce are usually much too hearty of appet.i.te, and wholesome of being, to be romantic--for long at a time, anyway.

The chums were as wild as hares that summer. They ran free in the woods, and went fishing with Jennie's brothers, and "camped out" over night on the edge of the pond, and learned all manner of trick swimming, including the removal of some of their outer clothing in the water.

"We're not going to be caught again as we were there in Clinton River, when our boat sank," declared Nancy, and Jennie agreed.

When they went back to Pinewood Hall they were as brown as Indians, and as strong and wiry as wolves. Miss Etching complimented them on the good the summer seemed to have done them.

Now came the time when Nancy Nelson and her chum "went higher" in more ways than one. They were full-fledged juniors, and they had to give up old Number 30, West Side, which they both loved, to incoming freshies.

They drew Number 83--a lovely room, much larger than their old one and more sumptuously furnished. It had a double door, too, and the walls were almost sound-proof.

"What a lovely room to study in!" cried Nancy.

"And a great one to hold 'orgies' in," whispered Jennie, her eyes twinkling.

So they determined, a week after school opened, to have "a house-warming." Nancy had a good part of her spending money, given to her by Mr. Gordon during vacation, left in her purse. They invited twenty of their closest friends of the junior cla.s.s and, as Jennie expressed it, "just laid themselves out" for a fine spread.

There was to be fudge, too, which Nancy had the knack of making. The chums had a chafing dish hidden away, and this was brought forth and the ingredients made ready, while Nancy hovered over the dish like a gray-robed witch.

"Do you know what Cora Rathmore said?" chattered one of the visitors.

"Everything but her prayers!" declared Jennie, with sarcasm.

"No, no! about this racket to-night."

"Didn't know she knew we were going to have a house-warming," said Jennie, looking up quickly. "I hope not!"

"She _does_ know," said another girl.

"Then somebody must have told," declared Nancy, warmly. "We tried to keep it very quiet."

"And from Cora, too!" said Jennie, shaking her head.

"Well! she said you were just too mean for anything when you did not ask her--and she right on this corridor," said the first speaker.

"Well, wouldn't that jar you?" commented Jennie Bruce.

"And she said she hoped you'd get caught," pursued the other girl.

"Wow, wow, says the fox!" exclaimed Jennie. "What do you think of that, now, Nance?"

"I think if we _are_ caught we'll know whom to blame it to," responded her chum, decidedly.

"My goodness me! Do you suppose she would be so mean?" cried another of the visiting juniors.

"There's nothing too mean for Cora to try," answered Jennie.

"And I saw her outside her room just as I came in here!" exclaimed another girl.

"Oh, me, oh, my!" cried Jennie. "I've got to go and see to this."

She dashed out of the room, leaving the other girls in a delightful tremor. She was gone but a moment.

"Oh, girls! Scatter!" she gasped, when she stuck her head in at the door again. "Cora's out of her room and there's somebody coming up the lower flight."

"The Madame herself!" gasped Nancy.

The other girls grabbed handfuls of the good things, and ran. The fudge was not quite done.

"Quick! Out of the window with it!" gasped Jennie, seizing the handle of the pan.

"But she'll smell it!" wailed Nancy.

"Will she? Not much!" declared Jennie, and grabbing a rubber shoe from the closet held it for thirty seconds over the flame of the alcohol lamp.

Nancy, meanwhile, had been hiding away all the goodies. The candy, pan and all, had gone out of the window. Nothing but the awful stench of the rubber shoe could be smelled when the lights went out, and the girls hopped lightly into bed.

"Rat, tat, tat!" on the door.

Jennie yawned, rolled over, and yawned again.

"Rat, tat, tat!"

"Oh, yes'm!" cried Jennie, bouncing up.

"Nancy Nelson! Nancy Nelson's wanted!" exclaimed the sleepy voice of Madame Schakael's maid, who slept downstairs.

"Oh, dear, me! What's happened?" demanded Nancy, unable to carry out the farce now. This was not what the girls had expected.

"Wanted down in the office, Miss. Telegram. The Madame wants to see you right away."

The maid went away.