"Nan Sherwood's writing!" gasped Linda, pouncing on it at once. She read aloud:
"Dearest Momsey:--
"I love you! love you! And I wish I were where you are, or you were where I am. I'd love to let down your beautiful hair and brush it and make it all pretty again, as I used. I am so, _so_ lonely for you and Papa Sherwood that I don't so much mind if you don't ever get any of that money and have to come home, and we are poor again in 'the little dwelling in amity.' I so very much want to see you both that I hope you will come back from Scotland right away and we shall meet in dear old Tillbury and not have to be separated any more.
"I am thankful to you and Papa Sherwood for sending me to this nice school; and I enjoy it, and if everything were all right, I'd dearly love to stay. But I am so _hungry_ for a sight of you that I'll gladly give up school.
"And that is just what I must do, dear Momsey, and you must make Papa Sherwood agree. I won't let him spend any of that money he will have to raise on mortgage to pay the other half year's fees here. No, indeed!"
The letter ended there. Had Cora not been so much under Linda's influence she would have cried a bit over the tender lines Nan had written.
But Linda fairly exulted over the information which the letter gave.
"Isn't that great," she demanded excitedly. "Now we'll fix that Nan Sherwood! Got to leave, and her folks aren't going to be rich, after all! I don't suppose there was ever any chance of it, anyway. It was just talk. Ha! the nasty little thing. This will just fix her!"
And Nan, all that last day of silence, went about wondering why many of the girls looked so oddly at her, and especially Linda Riggs' group.
They laughed, and made supposedly funny speeches which were evidently aimed at Nan, but which she did not understand.
Rumor was blowing about, and before Bess Harley had any of the particulars from her chum of the calamity that had befallen, the whole school practically knew that Nan Sherwood's folks "were poor as church mice."
CHAPTER XXVI
THE GRAND GUARD BALL
Bess was in a terrible state of mind when the news was told to her. She told Nan before suppertime that the girls were saying awful things, and she wanted to know what it meant. The fact that Nan was still bound by Dr. Prescott's sentence of silence made no difference to Bess.
"You've got to tell me what it means, or I'll never speak to you again, so there!" cried Bess. "How is it your own chum never knows anything about your secrets, and other girls do? It's a horrid shame!"
Nan, much troubled herself now, having discovered the loss of her unfinished letter, ran off to the principal and begged to be relieved of her sentence of silence. "Else I shall lose my dearest friend!" she told Dr. Prescott, quite wildly. "Something has happened that I _must_ tell her about, dear Dr. Prescott! I _must_!"
"'Must' is a hard master, Nancy," said the principal, softly. "Are you in trouble?"
"Yes, Dr. Prescott," admitted Nan, almost sobbing.
"Can I help you at all, my dear?"
"No! Oh, thank you, no! Oh! it's nothing to do with my own self here at school; but it is about my father and my mother. They--they are having some trouble in Scotland."
"I see, my dear," said Dr. Prescott, quietly. "I hope it is not as bad as you evidently think. But, whatever it is, remember that I am always ready to help my girls if I can. There may be something later that I can do."
"Thank you! thank you, so much, Dr. Prescott!" Nan cried, putting up her lips for the warm kiss the preceptress gave her. "And I may speak to Bess?"
"I absolve you from further silence. I think you will remember this punishment," said the principal, with a smile.
Then Nan went back and told Bess all. The two girls read Mrs. Sherwood's letter again and again, and Bess declared that Nan should not leave Lakeview Hall, no matter what happened about the Scotch legacy. "My father will pay for you to stay here with me, Nan Sherwood. You know he will."
Nan would not argue this point. They had talked that over to a conclusion long before circumstances had made it possible for Nan to attend the school. With all her desire for an education, Nan was the soul of independence. She knew now just what she would do. Her parents could not get home much before the Christmas holidays, and Nan determined to go to Tillbury to them when they reached there, and at once get a certificate from Mr. Mangel, the high-school principal, and try to secure a position in some store in Tillbury. She told Bess, to that young lady's disgust and alarm, that she must help support the family and help her father pay off the mortgage that would have to be put on the little cottage on Amity Street.
"I think it's just as mean as it can be!" sobbed Bess, fairly given up to woe. "And we were going to have such fun this winter. And Dad's almost promised that we should have a nice boat next spring. Oh, dear me, Nan Sherwood! Something always is happening to you to stir us all up!"
At another time Nan would have laughed at this way of expressing it; but she found no food for laughter in anything now. The girls who were closest to her, and loved her, were just as tender and kind as their several natures suggested. Grace Mason cried outright and her eyes were swollen and red the next morning when Walter ran over in the motor car to see her.
"What's the matter, Sis?" he demanded. "Who's been picking on you now?"
"Sh! Nobody. Nan and Bess and Laura wouldn't let them," his sister confessed. "But it's Nan--in _such_ trouble!"
She related what she knew of the circumstances, and Walter was deeply impressed by the story.
"Go ahead and get Nan, and we'll take a little spin," suggested the boy.
While his sister ran to ask permission, and to find Nan, Linda Riggs came along and stopped, as always, to speak to Walter.
"How is it you never take us girls to ride any more, as you used to last term?" asked the rich girl, smiling winningly on Walter.
"I--I don't have much time," stammered the boy, awkwardly. "Tutors, you know, and all that. Awfully busy."
"Yes--you--are!" laughed Cora, who was with her friend. "We see you on the roads, flying by."
Just then Grace appeared.
"Here we are, Walter!" she cried. "We're all ready."
"Oh! all right," answered the boy, and got out quickly to crank up.
Linda tossed her head as Nan followed Grace down the front steps. "That is what it means, eh?" she whispered to Cora. "That poverty-stricken Nan Sherwood! I wonder if Walter knows he's taking out a pauper in that handsome car."
"Oh! maybe Nan isn't quite a pauper," said Cora doubtfully.
"Yes, she is! And a thief! Or, she tried to be----"
"You know Mrs. Cupp warned you about repeating that story, Linda," said Cora, hastily.
"Well! just the same there'll be another story to tell," muttered Linda, watching the automobile party get under way with envious eyes. "I'll just fix that Nan Sherwood; you see!"
In the automobile Walter found time to say to Nan, when Grace could not hear: "I'm awfully sorry you're in trouble, Nan. I wish I could help you. We all like you tremendously. You know that, don't you?"
"I believe you mean it, Walter," said Nan, winking fast to keep back the tears. "And it's just _dear_ of you to say so. Thanks!" and Nan pressed the boy's offered hand warmly.
The Grand Guard Ball, a social event that shook Freeling and the surrounding towns to their social centre, was to be held on this evening. The older girls of Lakeview Hall were usually allowed to attend the assembly under the care of one or two teachers. Sometimes Dr. Beulah Prescott herself attended the ball.
Nan did not really care to go; but Bess insisted, and would not go without her. Mrs. Harley had seen to it that both girls had pretty party dresses, and these compared well with the frocks worn by the other girls who filled Charley's old omnibus and the several automobiles that transported the pupils from Lakeview Hall to the ball.
Linda Riggs wore a frock as unfitted for her age as Mrs. Cupp would allow. It was noticed, too, that Linda did not wear the pretty coral necklace she had displayed so frequently during the term. That was around Cora's pretty throat, while Linda's neck was bare of any ornament. Mrs. Cupp did not attend the assembly on this occasion. She hurried off to the village early in the evening, having received a note from her sister, Miss Vane. Some of the girls said that Mrs. Cupp and her sister were in trouble over an orphan boy whom Miss Sadie Vane had once taken to bring up.