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.

“He was more like a bond-slave than an adopted son, I reckon,” Susan told Laura Polk, in her gossipy way. “If you gals yere think Mrs. Cupp is a Tartar, yo’d ought to have some ’sperience with Miss Sadie Vane. I wo’ked fo’ her once. Never again!”

“What’s happened to the boy?” Laura asked.

“He done run away, and now it tu’ns out that there’s money comin’ to him an’ the ’thorities want to know whar he done gone. It’s makin’ Miss Vane a sight of trouble—an’ sarve her right!”

This story Laura, of course, told to her chums; but nobody expressed any sorrow for Mrs. Cupp but Nan. The latter could not help but feel that, after all, the matron had shown her some kindness, even if she had told Dr. Prescott about the boathouse banquet.

Dr. Prescott did not herself attend the Grand Guard Ball. Mademoiselle Loro was very near-sighted, and Miss Gleason, the physical culture instructor, who also went to chaperon the girls, was not of an observant nature.

Therefore, when Linda Riggs suddenly blazed out in all the glory of a diamond and ruby necklace in an old-fashioned setting “more fit,” as Amelia Boggs said, “for a Choctaw princess to wear than a white girl!” there really was nobody to forbid the display.

People remarked about it, however. It was plainly a family heirloom and very valuable. If it was done to advertise Mr. Riggs’ wealth, it was in poor taste, and Dr. Prescott certainly would be greatly displeased if she heard of Linda’s action. However, nobody had any concern about that unless it was Linda herself.

The girls enjoyed every minute they were allowed to remain at the ball. Each girl was allowed three dances, and the question of partners was a burning one.

Walter Mason had done yeoman’s duty in this matter. He knew every youth who attended the ball. He was indefatigable in introducing them to his sister and the other girls from the Hall. Even Amelia had partners for her three dances.

In fact, only one girl missed the full complement of dances. That was Linda. She was so angry with Walter that she refused to let him introduce any of his friends, and in return Walter did not ask her to dance at all. So the Linda Riggs’ clique, and Nan and the Masons, were very much at odds when they went back to the hall at ten o’clock.

The necklace disappeared from Linda’s neck before the Hall was reached. But in the morning, at breakfast time, it appeared again in a most surprising bit of gossip. Around the tables went the rumor, flying from lip to lip:

“Linda’s beautiful necklace is gone! She’s in her room in tears and will not be comforted. She declares it has been stolen.”

Early in the morning after the Grand Guard Ball in Freeling, Nan Sherwood had an adventure.

She had spent part of the previous day writing another letter to her mother, and that she finished, sealed, stamped and mailed in the school letter-bag. This time she knew that no ill-natured girl would get hold of it. But, of course, the whole school knew by this time that she was going to leave at the end of the term, and that “her folks weren’t rich at all, so there!”

Not that Nan had ever talked about the Scotch legacy more than she could help; and certainly she had not boasted to the girls of her wealth. There are certain natures, however, who envy the successful, and Nan had been very successful in making friends, in finding favor with the teachers, and in standing well in her classes.

So even some girls whom she had been kind to, were glad to repeat now the story of Nan Sherwood’s coming poverty as first circulated by Linda Riggs and her satellites. Nan had heard many unkind whispers, and when alone she grieved over this.

By reason of her fretting, she did not sleep well after the ball, and she arose long before the gong sounded and when it was still quite dark. There was a paring of silver moon low on the horizon, which looked as though it had been sewed into the black velvet robe of Night; and the robe was trimmed with sparkling silver and red stars as well.

The air was keen, although there was no wind; and the hoarfrost hung from the bushes and dried grass-blades, while there was a rime of it the length of the balustrade to the beach. Nan ran down this flight to see if the ice would bear yet. Skating was in the offing, and she and Bess loved to skate.

Professor Krenner had reported the day before that the strait between the lake shore where his cabin stood, and the Isle of Hope, half a mile out in the lake, was skimmed over with ice. Here, at the foot of the flight of stairs and along by the haunted boathouse, the edge of the water was fringed with a crust of thin ice.

“Not much more fun for me at dear old Lakeview Hall,” Nan was thinking as she skipped lightly along the edge of this uncertain ice. “But I’ll get my skates sharpened, as Bess begged me. That will not be a great extravagance. We’ll have some good fun before the term closes and we go home for the holidays. Oh, dear!”

The sigh was not because of the home-going. It was for the reason that Nan felt very sure that she would never see the Hall again.

Just as she was thinking this and watching idly the broken water far out in the strait toward the Isle of Hope, she put her foot upon a strip of ice and, to her amazement, it broke through and she plunged knee deep in the icy water.

“Oh! Oh! OH!” she gasped, in graduated surprise.

For as she strove to pull out the first foot, her other one went—slump—right through the ice, too. And it was cold!

Nan was not frightened at first. She was an athletic girl, and very strong and agile. But she was amazed to find that both feet were fast in the half-frozen slime at the bottom of this hole into which she had stepped. She strove to pull her feet free, and actually could not do it!

Then, as she lifted her head to look about for help, she saw a figure in black running hard toward her. It came from the rear of the big boathouse. It was a slight figure, and Nan immediately thought of “the black dog” that had chased Mrs. Cupp the night of the boathouse party.

“I’ll get you! I’ll get you!” exclaimed the boy, for such in reality he was, and he threw forward a tough branch for Nan to cling to.

She accepted this aid gladly. At first she almost drew him into the water. Then he braced his heels in the bank and flung himself back to balance her weight. First one foot and then the other Nan pulled out of the icy mire, and in half a minute she was ashore.

“Oh! how can I thank you?” she cried. “If you hadn’t been here——”

“It’s all right—it’s all right, Miss,” the boy stammered, and immediately began to back away. “You needn’t thank me. I’d have done it for anybody.”

Nan was eyeing the lad curiously. Many thoughts beside those of gratitude for his timely help, were passing through her mind.

“Who are you?” she asked abruptly. “Do you live around here?”

The boy was a pale youth, but he flushed deeply now and edged farther away, as though he really feared her.

“Oh, yes! I live near here. I—I’m glad I could help you. Good-bye!”

Before Nan could stop him by word or act, he turned around and ran up the shore of the lake until he was hidden from the girl’s surprised view.

“Well! isn’t that the strangest thing?” demanded Nan, of nobody at all. Then she realized that she was getting very cold indeed, standing there with wet feet and ankles, and she herself started on a run for the steps to the top of the bluff, and had just time enough to get to the Hall and change her shoes and stockings before breakfast.

At the table she was giving to Bess an eager account of her adventure when Laura Polk said to the chums from Tillbury:

“Heard the latest, girls?”

“Don’t know. What is the latest?” asked Bess. “Nan’s got a yarn to tell that almost passes human belief. She seems to have interviewed a ghost and got her feet wet at the same time.”

“That’s nothing,” declared Laura. “Linda’s lost that beautiful necklace.”

“Goodness! you don’t mean it?” gasped Bess.

“The poor girl!” exclaimed Nan, with sympathy. “How did it happen?”

“The deponent knoweth not,” said Laura, tightly. “It’s a big loss—bigger than that awful maxim Miss Craven used to teach all us girls: ‘Lost! Somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered, for they are gone forever!’”

“How ridiculous!” chuckled Bess.

“It is no laughing matter, girls,” said Nan, with gravity.

“What isn’t; the maxim?” cried Bess.

“No. Linda’s loss.”

“Pooh! What do I care?” scoffed Bess. “I’m wasting no tears over Linda.”

“But that lovely necklace!” cried Nan.

“It was a beauty,” admitted Laura.

“Oh! her father won’t mind. He has more money than anybody else in the world—to hear her tell it,” laughed the heartless Bess.

“She can’t help being foolish, I suppose,” added Laura.

“She showed how silly she was by wearing the necklace,” Bess declared. “Maybe a burglar saw it; and followed her home, and stole it.”

Mrs. Cupp rang her bell sharply. “Young ladies!” she exclaimed, when there was comparative silence. “Young ladies! Attention! Miss Sherwood is wanted in Dr. Prescott’s office at once.”

Many of the girls stared at Nan as she slowly arose, her breakfast partly eaten. More than one whisper went around the tables. One girl asked right out loud:

“Wonder what Dr. Prescott wants her for?”

“I know!” squealed the eager voice of one of the younger pupils. “I came right past Linda Riggs’ door, and I heard her say to Cora Courtney that she knew Nan stole that necklace!”

“Oh!” The exclamation was general. But Amelia Boggs’ voice rose above the confusion.

“You miserable infant!” she cried. “You ought to be spanked and put to bed for a week!”

“Young ladies!” came in Mrs. Cupp’s stern voice, “less confusion, please!”

Nan had risen in some trepidation to go to the principal’s study. But the suggestion that she was wanted because Linda had lost her necklace almost bound her feet where she stood. It seemed to Nan as though she could not move.

“Nan! Nan!” cried Bess, jumping up, her face ablaze. “It’s a story, a wicked story! They sha’n’t treat you so!”

Her arm was over Nan’s shoulders and she was crying, frankly. Mrs. Cupp’s voice again was heard above the noise.

“Elizabeth! Sit down!”

The reckless Bess paid no attention to the command, but went on with Nan to the door. This flagrant disobeying of the matron’s order awed the other girls to silence.

Bess left her chum in the hall and came back, her eyes streaming.

“I don’t care what you do to me, Mrs. Cupp, so there!” she sobbed. “Nan is shamefully abused. You can punish me all you want to, Mrs. Cupp, only don’t tell me to keep my mouth closed for a week, for I—just—could—not—do—it!”

“I believe you, Elizabeth,” said the matron, drily, preparing to follow Nan Sherwood. “I will attend to your case later.”

In the principal’s office Nan found Linda in tears and Dr. Prescott looking very grave indeed.

“Do you know anything about the loss of Linda’s necklace, my dear?” the preceptress said kindly to Nan.

“No, Dr. Prescott,” whispered Nan, her face very white and her lips fairly blue.

“That is sufficient, Nancy. You are mistaken, Linda. And it is a mistake that can hardly be excused.”

“You just take her word for it!” cried Linda, wildly. “And my father will about kill me when he knows grandmother’s necklace is gone. She’s a——”

“That will do!” Dr. Prescott sternly warned her.

“I don’t care! She’s a pauper! Nobody else in the school is poor enough to want to steal. She tried to take my bag on the train——”

“No more of it!” commanded Dr. Prescott, rising angrily. “You are incorrigible, Linda. First of all, I want to know how you came to have the necklace to wear. Mrs. Cupp tells me she strictly forbade you to take it out of your trunk.”

Mrs. Cupp entered at that moment. “Here’s Henry,” she said shortly to the doctor. “He has something to show you.”

The man came in, wiping his snowy boots on the mat.

“What is it, Henry?” asked the troubled principal.

“This, Mum,” said Henry, holding out something that glittered in his hand. “I reckon ’tis some gewgaw of the young ladies. I found it under a window with some trash from a wastepaper basket, and I want you to be tellin’ ’em again that I will not have ’em throwing trash out o’ window.”

“My necklace!” shrieked Linda, and leaped to seize it.

But Henry closed his hand, and Linda might as well have tried to open a bank-vault without the combination.

“Give it to me,” said Dr. Prescott, soberly. “When did you empty your basket out of the window, Linda?”

“La—last night—after we got home from the ball. I forgot it yesterday and it was—was too full,” wept Linda.

“And your necklace went out of the window with it,” said Dr. Prescott, sternly.

“Look at that child!” suddenly exclaimed Mrs. Cupp. The matron crossed the room quickly and caught poor Nan before she fell. “She’s just about made sick by this,” she said tartly. “Why! she’s fainted. And she’s feverish! Here’s a pretty to-do!”

The principal hurried to Nan’s side and looked into her pallid face. “There is trouble here—more trouble than we know about,” she whispered. “Don’t take her to her room. In here! You may go, Henry. Thank you! And you return to your room, Linda. We will look further into this affair.”

Half an hour later Mrs. Cupp came out of the principal’s suite of rooms with a troubled face, and telephoned for Dr. Larry, the school physician.

Nan did not know very much about it. She had a dreamy remembrance of the first day or two of her sojourn in what the girls called “the sick bay.” She remembered Dr. Larry’s kind face leaning above her; and she realized that he was there a great deal at first.

The fact was, the physician made a hard fight to ward off the threatened attack of pneumonia that he feared. Nan had been in a receptive state for sudden illness when she slipped into the icy water that morning—worried in mind, and having eaten little for several meals. Then was added to this the mental shock of Linda’s accusation.

Her mind wandered, and Dr. Prescott and Mrs. Cupp heard a great deal about a “black ghost” and a “boy in black” who were trying to get Linda Riggs’ necklace away from Nan. This troubled the girl greatly in her first delirium.

Then she wandered to Scotland and took up the burden of her parents’ financial troubles. She tried to get them home on the boat, but they had no tickets, and the captain would not trust them for their passage. These and many other imaginary troubles helped to confuse the poor girl’s mind.

But finally the delirium settled into one thing. Nan wanted Beulah!

At first the principal thought she meant her. Dr. Prescott knew, of course, that her girls called her in affection “Dr. Beulah.” She came to the bedside as often as Nan cried out the name. But soon it was apparent that the principal’s kind and beautiful face did not assuage Nan’s longing.

The girl talked intimately to “Beautiful Beulah” about “Momsey” and “Papa Sherwood.” “If we were only back, all together again, in the little dwelling in amity,” weakly cried the sick girl. “Oh, Beulah! I haven’t been nice to you. I’ve been ashamed of you! I was afraid of what the girls would say, and that Mrs. Cupp would think I was a baby.”

“What can the poor child mean?” demanded the worried principal, of the matron. “Dr. Larry says that this worrying over the mysterious ‘Beulah’ is doing her more harm than anything else.”

Mrs. Cupp’s face was very grim. She was not a sympathetic looking woman at best. Now she looked more severe than ever. She marched out of the sick room without a word. She had already removed from about Nan’s neck the fine gold chain and key. In a few minutes she marched in again, to Dr. Prescott’s unbounded surprise, and laid a wonderful, big, pink-cheeked doll beside Nan in the bed.

Mrs. Cupp, it seems, had a pretty exact knowledge of everything hidden at the bottom of the girls’ trunks, after all.

When Nan aroused the next time, there was Beautiful Beulah right in the crook of her arm. She smiled, hugged the doll close to her, took her medicine without a murmur, and went at once to sleep again.

“Poor little girl,” said good Dr. Larry when he was told about it. “Of course that wasn’t what has been really troubling her, Dr. Prescott. But the doll is connected with a happier time, when she was at home with her absent parents. With that wax beauty in her possession all troubles look smaller to her youthful mind.”

“I did think Nancy Sherwood was too big for doll-babies!” sniffed Mrs. Cupp, refusing to show any further tenderness.

“I can see how she feels,” said Dr. Prescott, understandingly. “I’m tempted to play with that beautiful thing myself. Nancy loves babies, and is as kind as she can be to the smaller girls. It would not hurt some of the girls older than she if they ‘played dolls’ again. They are altogether too grown-up.”

Bess was at the door of the sick room morning, noon and night. As soon as the physician said there was no danger, Nan’s chum was allowed in the room. When she saw the big doll on the pillow beside Nan’s head, she uttered a large, round “O!”

“Didn’t you ever see it before, Elizabeth?” asked the principal, curiously.

“Oh—why! It’s Beautiful Beulah! Beg pardon, Dr. Prescott! it isn’t named after you. Nan had it ever so many years ago. My! I never suspected it was in existence. And to bring it to school with her! My!”

Nan’s vitality brought her out of the “sick bay” in a short time. She lost only a week from her books altogether. That, she told herself, did not so much matter when her time at Lakeview Hall was to be so short.

But she was faithful, and hurried to make up the lost recitations. Linda Riggs was in retirement, disgraced before the whole school. She had been obliged to publicly deny the story she had started about Nan Sherwood and the lost necklace. And, too, the necklace had been sent by registered post to Mr. Riggs with a sharp letter from Dr. Prescott reminding him that the girls of Lakeview Hall were not allowed to wear such jewelry.

Some of the girls were inclined to poke fun at Nan’s big doll, which was brought up into Room Seven, Corridor Four, and given a place of honor there. But it was gentle fun, for the whole school was sorry for Nan now. They knew that she must leave the Hall at the end of the term because of financial reverses, and the girls were beginning to find out how lovable she was, and to remember how kind she had been to everybody.

Procrastination Boggs crocheted a shawl for Beautiful Beulah and Laura Polk brought a tiny embroidered cap that fitted the doll’s head perfectly. Bess made leggings for Nan’s “child” and Gracie Mason presented a pair of fur-trimmed boots. Really, there never was so lucky a doll “baby” as Beautiful Beulah, for she had presents galore.

Nan could not refuse any of these gifts, and most of them came with funny little notes. The doll was made much of by everybody in Corridor Four. She was decked and re-decked in all the finery that came to her and many of the girls “looked in” at Room Seven every day, just to see how Nan’s “child” got along.

The girl from Tillbury began to notice that some of the biggest of them liked to hold the doll and dress and redress it; and “there was a deal of fuss,” as Mrs. Cupp said, made over the pretty blue-eyed thing.

Finally Laura had a bright idea. She suggested that a party be given in Beautiful Beulah’s honor.

“A regular, sure-enough, honest-to-goodness party!” she cried. “Why not? Everybody bring something to give the child—have a regular ‘shower’ party.”

“Goodness! haven’t we had parties enough for one term?” demanded Nan. “That one at the boathouse seemed to fill the bill.”

“Oh, nothing like that! We might not get out of it so easy again,” admitted the red-haired girl. “And, anyway, that’s ancient history. Let’s have it in the afternoon and feed ’em tea and cakes.”

Bess was enthusiastic immediately. She had been quite subdued since the boathouse party, and Nan’s sickness; she was “just aching” for something to happen! Anything “doing” always delighted Bess; but the trouble with Nan’s chum was, she would try to mix the business of studying with pleasure.

She started to crochet a “fascinator” (so Amelia Boggs called it) for Nan’s doll, and fearing she would not get it done in time she carried the crocheting with her into German class, Frau Deuseldorf was not particularly sharp-sighted; but her hearing was not failing; and when she addressed Bess twice without receiving any reply it was only natural that the German teacher should step down from the platform to see what the brown head was doing, bent so low over Elizabeth’s book.

“Vell, vell, vell!” exclaimed the teacher, in some excitement. “Vas iss?”

“Oh! One, two, three, and four!” muttered the earnest Bess. “Did—did you speak to me, Madam?” and the girl looked up dreamily, poising the crocheting needle before taking up the next stitch.

“Ach! what is the child doing?” demanded the lady, seizing the work in Bess’ hand.

“Oh, Madam Deuseldorf!” shrieked Bess. “You made me drop a stitch.”

“Drop a stitch? Drop a stitch?” repeated the lady, in some heat. “Undt vy shouldt you have stitches to drop in classroom? Tell me that, please!”

“Oh—oh—I—I——” poor Bess stammered, Frau Deuseldorf could be very stern when she wished.

“What iss this for?” demanded the teacher, holding up the confiscated “fascinator” and shaking it in the air so that all the girls began to giggle.

“It’s for the party,” blurted out Bess, very red in the face.

Just then Dr. Beulah and half a dozen visitors—some of them gentlemen—entered the classroom. The situation was tragic—for poor Bess. There stood Frau Deuseldorf in commanding attitude, her back to the door, unconscious of the approach of the preceptress and her friends, and waving the unfinished bit of crocheting in the air.

“For why did you come here to Lakeview, Miss?” demanded the teacher. “To knit—to sew—to play? Ach! I do not teach a class in baby-doll r-r-rags, I hope! Remove yourself to the platform, Miss. Take this—this plaything with you. Sit down there that the other pupils may see how you employ your hands and mind in class——”

She turned majestically and saw the amused visitors. Even Dr. Beulah seemed to relish the situation, for her eyes twinkled and her lips twitched a little as she said—to cover the German lady’s confusion:

“The time is not propitious for a visit to your class, Madam, I can plainly see. We will withdraw.”

She did not speak sternly; but Nan—who was watching—saw that Frau Deuseldorf turned strangely pallid and that her hands shook as she went back to her desk, following the angry and tearful Bess. After a moment, when the girls had settled into something like their usual calm, and had stopped giggling, the lady leaned over and patted Bess softly on the shoulder.

“Never mind, my dear,” she said, her voice vibrant with some feeling that the girls who heard her did not understand. “Put the foolish trifle on my desk here and go back to your book. You are punished enough. Ach! perhaps I am, too.”

And Nan Sherwood noted the fact that the German lady was much troubled during the rest of the session. She wondered why.

Like several of the instructors at Lakeview Hall, Frau Deuseldorf did not sleep on the premises. “Mister” Frau Deuseldorf kept a delicatessen shop in town and the couple had rooms behind the shop. The German instructor’s husband, whom all the girls called “Mister Frau Deuseldorf,” was a pursy, self-important little man, with a bristling pompadour and mustache. He was like a gnome with a military bearing—if you can imagine such a person!

When Frau Deuseldorf put her heavily shod foot over the threshold of the delicatessen shop she at once became the typical German hausfrau, and nothing else. Her University training was set aside. She cooked her husband’s dinner with her own hands and then served him in approved German style.

It was the very afternoon of Bess Harley’s trouble in German class that Nan and she chanced to have an errand in town and obtained permission from Mrs. Cupp to go there. The girls often bought delicacies of Mister Deuseldorf—his cheeses and wurst had quite a special flavor, and he made lovely potato salad that often graced the secret banquets at Lakeview Hall.

As Nan and Bess came along Main Street, there was the little, bristle-haired Teuton, standing at his door. His bald head was bare and he wore carpet slippers and no coat. As the light was fading, he evidently had come to the door to read a letter which he held close to his purblind eyes.

“Frau Deuseldorf hasn’t come down from the Hall yet—mean old thing!” ejaculated Bess.

“You needn’t call her names. I think she was awfully easy on you,” Nan said, smiling. “And she seemed worried, too, because Dr. Beulah caught the classroom in such a turmoil.”

“Well, it wasn’t my fault,” grumbled Bess, knowing, of course, that it was, but wishing to excuse herself if she could.

Nan made no immediate reply. She was watching the little German compassionately. As he stood there in the open door scanning the rustling sheet of paper, the girl saw that frank tears were running down his plump cheeks. Nan clutched her chum’s wrist, and whispered:

“Oh, Bess! what do you suppose is the matter with Mister Frau Deuseldorf?”

“What? How? Oh!” exclaimed Bess, likewise seeing the little man’s emotion as he turned back into the shop. “Why, Nan!”

“Yes,” said Nan. “He was crying.”

“Let’s go in,” suggested the impulsive Bess. “Maybe he will tell us about it.”

“But—but—I wouldn’t like to intrude,” Nan said.

“Come on! We’ll buy a pickle,” exclaimed Bess. “Surely he won’t think that very much of an intrusion.”

When the tinkling little bell over the door announced the girls’ entrance the German appeared from the rear premises, wiping his eyes on a checked handkerchief. He knew the two girls from the Hall by sight.

“Goot afternoon, fraulein,” he said, in greeting. “Iss de school oudt yet?”

“Most of the classes are over for the day, sir,” Nan replied, as Bess took much time in selecting the wartiest and biggest pickle in the Deuseldorf collection.

“Iss mein Frau come the town in yet?” pursued the little man, whose idiomatic speech often amused the girls when they came to the store.

“I believe she was correcting exercises, sir,” Nan said, smiling. “I expect we girls make her much extra trouble.”

“Ach!” he responded. “Trouble we haf in blenty—yes. But that iss light trouble. Idt iss of our Hans undt Fritz we haf de most trouble. Yes!”

Nan and Bess knew that the German couple worked only, and saved and “scrimped” only, for the support of two grown sons in the military service of the Fatherland. They desired that Hans and Fritz should have the best, and marry well. But for a young Prussian officer to keep up appearances and hold a footing among his mates, costs much more than his wage as a soldier.

“I hope your sons are well, Herr Deuseldorf,” Nan said, speaking carefully.

“Vell? Ja—they no sickness have. But there iss more trouble as sickness—Ach! mein Frau, she come!” he exclaimed.

Bess had selected the pickle. The little German gave them no more attention, but darted out from behind the counter to meet Frau Deuseldorf as she entered the shop. He waved the letter he had been reading excitedly, and began in high-pitched German to tell his wife the news—and news of trouble it was, indeed, as the two American girls could understand.

Both Bess and Nan had studied German a year before they came to the Hall, and rapidly as the little man talked they could understand much that he said. The slower replies of his startled wife they could likewise apprehend.

Nan and Bess clung together near the door, hesitating to depart, for Mister Frau Deuseldorf had not given Bess her change.

Hans was in trouble—serious trouble. His brother, Fritz, wrote that it would take all the old couple’s little savings to save Hans from disgrace; and one brother’s disgrace would seriously affect the career of the other.

“And perhaps I have offended the good Dr. Prescott this very day,” cried Frau Deuseldorf. “You know how it was at that other school last year, Henry.” (The German teacher had only been at Lakeview Hall half a year before this present term.) “Dr. Prescott, too, is very, very stern. She entered my classroom, with friends, just as one of those thoughtless girls had made me excited. The room was in a turmoil—Ach! it would be terrible now if the doctor requested my resignation.”

Nan drew Bess outside into the street. “Never mind the change, Bessie,” she begged.

“Oh! I’m so ashamed of myself,” sighed Bess. “I never knew people had so much trouble. And those sons are men grown!”

“Their children, just the same. But I know she is over-anxious about her position. I don’t suppose the little shop earns them very much. It is probably her salary at the school which goes to Germany. Oh, my dear! you don’t suppose Dr. Beulah is angry with Frau Deuseldorf because she does not keep good order in her classes? We do bother her a lot.”

Bess was very serious. “I know I do,” she admitted. “Sometimes it’s fun to plague her—she gets excited so easily, and forgets her polite English.”

“We mustn’t any more,” said Nan.

“I just know what I am going to do,” muttered Bess; but Nan did not hear her.

Elizabeth was impulsive; of late she had shown more strongly than before the influence Nan Sherwood’s character had had upon her own disposition. She felt herself at fault because of the scene that day in German class and Frau Deuseldorf feared she would be blamed for it.

Dr. Beulah Prescott had never seemed like a very harsh person to Bess; but the girl approached the office that evening before supper with some timidity. It had always been a hard thing for Bess Harley to admit that she was wrong in any case; and now, when Dr. Beulah was looking at her quizzically, the girl from Tillbury shrank from the ordeal.

“Miss Elizabeth! you do not often seek my desk, my dear,” said the preceptress pleasantly. “What is it you wish?”

“Oh, Dr. Prescott!” exclaimed Bess, going headlong into the matter as usual. “It’s about Frau Deuseldorf.”

Dr. Prescott’s pretty brows drew together a little; but perhaps it was a puzzled line instead of anger.

“What about your German instructor?” she asked quietly.

“Oh, dear Dr. Prescott! you won’t blame her for that trouble in class to-day—will you? It was I. I did it. I was crocheting instead of attending to the work. And you know how easy it is for her to get excited. Please blame me and not her, Dr. Prescott.”

“My dear child!” gasped the lady, in some surprise. “Perhaps I do not just understand. Sit down here. Now, be quiet, and don’t sob so. Tell me all about it.”

And Bess managed soon to control herself and explain fully her reason for coming to “beg off” for Frau Deuseldorf. The preceptress listened quietly; nor did she smile at Bess Harley’s way of trying to straighten out the affair.

“You are a kind girl,” she said, “and I am glad to see that—despite your thoughtlessness—you consider others. You should consider the Madam always in class, for she has a hard time enough at the best. I know she is easily excited; but I judge her work from results. I am quite satisfied with her and have no intention of disturbing her about that contretemps to-day. Indeed, I should not have mentioned it to her had you not told me how she felt about it.

“I will send Henry down town with a note at once to her. She shall sleep in peace to-night, after all, if my assurance of good will and sympathy will help her to do so.”

The news of the German teacher’s trouble circulated among the girls and it was noticeable that those who took German were more careful about giving the good, if excitable, lady trouble during the weeks that immediately followed.

Meanwhile Bess finished the “fascinator.” The other girls friendly to the chums in Room Seven, Corridor Four, brought gifts, too. Beautiful Beulah had an afternoon reception that was the talk of the Hall for weeks.

Of course, the little folk came; Nan was friends with every child in the primary grades, and she invited them to come and bring their dolls. There was tea and cakes enough for all; and the “reception” overflowed into the corridor. Mademoiselle Loro (who had taken a great fancy to Nan Sherwood) presided at the tea-table. The little Frenchwoman had by no means forgotten her youth and she did not cast any “damper” upon the occasion, as Bess Harley was afraid she would.

“I don’t know how it is, Nan,” said Bess, when the entertainment was over and they were alone. “You are just the funniest girl I ever heard of. Any other girl would never have thought of inviting a teacher to a doll’s party; if she had, the girls would have been afraid to come. But we had a splendid time, and I shall try to please Mademoiselle more in the future. She’s an awfully nice old thing.”

Nan only smiled. In her wise little brain this very result had been foreseen. She had begun to see that when the girls and the teachers only met in the classroom, or at meals, they did not “warm up to each other”; social intercourse with their instructors made the girls less antagonistic toward them.

The weather grew colder and the ice was pronounced safe. Skating began, and the chums from Tillbury soon showed the other girls how well they could skate together. Walter Mason declared he had just as soon skate with Nan Sherwood as with any boy he knew.

Nan and Bess went down to Mrs. Cupp’s room one day to ask for the privilege of going to town to get their skates sharpened. It was late afternoon and growing dusky in the stairways. There was no light in Mrs. Cupp’s room.

Before the girls reached the top of the flight leading to the basement they heard the matron scream. Then a sharp, shrill voice cried:

“I want my money! Give me my money! You and Miss Vane are trying to keep it from me. I want my money!”

“Go away! Go away!” the startled girls heard Mrs. Cupp murmur.

“I’ll haunt you! I’ll foller you——”

Bess had uttered a cry. Out of the matron’s room scuttled a thin, black figure, which darted down the stairs.

“The boathouse ghost!” gasped Bess, clinging to Nan, in fright.

“Goodness!” returned Nan. “If it is, he’s a long way off his beat, isn’t he? Boathouse ghost, indeed!”

But when they went into the matron’s room they found Mrs. Cupp lying back in her chair, in a pitiable state of fright.

Susan, her black face set in a very grim expression, came to wait upon Mrs. Cupp. “Go ’long, chillen,” she commanded, “I’ll ’tend to her.”

“But she’s been dreadfully frightened, Susan,” cried Nan, sympathetically.

“She saw a ghost, Susan,” whispered Bess, perhaps a little wickedly.

Susan rolled her eyes. “Go ’long, chile! Wot ghos’?”

“The boathouse ghost, I declare!” said Bess, with decision. “Wasn’t it, Nan? All black—and small—and it squealed. Didn’t it, Nan?”

“It was a boy,” said her chum. “And he ran down cellar. Somebody ought to look into it.”

“Into the cellar?” asked Bess, with a giggle, as Susan “shooed” them out of the matron’s room and shut the door at their backs.

“Yes. Just that,” said Nan, decidedly.

“Where do you suppose that boy went—if it was a boy?”

“I know,” Nan said, hesitating at the top of the stairs.

“You know?” cried Bess.

“Positively!”

“Goodness me! Is this another of your secrets, Nan Sherwood? You are the very meanest girl for a chum——”

“I never told you about this because so many other things came in between and made me forget,” confessed Nan, quickly. “Come on! Let me show you.”

She started down the basement stairs, but Bess hung back.

“I don’t know about following a ghost.”

“Nonsense! It’s only a boy,” said Nan. “He’s the very boy who pulled me out of the water the other morning. And he’s somebody else, too!”

“I don’t know what you mean, and I don’t know where you’re leading me,” grumbled Bess.

“To the trunk-room,” said Nan, answering one question.

“But that boy could not get in there. The door’s locked.”

“We’ll see,” said Nan, hurrying on.

In a few moments they were down the dark passageway and at the door. It was wide open.

“Now, how do you suppose that happened?” queried Bess. “Mrs. Cupp is so particular about keeping it locked.”

“The boy opened it when he came through,” said Nan.

“From the inside?” gasped Bess. “Do you think he’s been hiding in one of the trunks?”

Nan showed her quickly that the knob of the spring lock was on the inside of the trunk-room door. One could easily get out of the room without a key.

“But for goodness’ sake!” cried Bess. “Tell me how he got in here?”

“That’s what I am going to show you,” said her chum, laughing. As they walked down the long room, Nan snapping on a light here and there to show the way, she told her chum about the movable part of the partition and how she had made the discovery.

Bess’ interest and curiosity was roused to the highest point.

“What did I tell you, Nan Sherwood?” Bess cried. “There is an underground passage down to the boathouse!”

“We’ll just see,” agreed Nan.

They pushed down the movable part of the partition. It was dark inside, and dank, and there was a musty smell. Once assured that there was nothing supernatural about the black figure they had seen, Bess was as brave as a lion. She ran for a lantern which she knew was in the scullery, lit it, and brought it to Nan, who sat on the door over the mysterious well. By the light of the lantern the chums saw a flight of stone steps cut in the very rock of the bluff on which Lakeview Hall stood leading downward into a seemingly bottomless, walled pit.

“Here’s the smugglers’ path to the boathouse!” Bess declared eagerly.

“Oh, nonsense!”

“Well, I don’t care,” cried Bess, pouting, “I bet this is the way the boy went down. And came up, too, to frighten Mrs. Cupp.”

“That may be,” agreed Nan.

“What did he want to frighten her for?” demanded Bess. “Did you hear what he said about his money? Maybe he’s crazy. Oh, my!” and Bess hesitated with her foot on the top step.

“If he is, we two can manage him,” said Nan, decidedly. “Come on.”

Nan was sure that the strange boy who had helped her out of the water more than a week before, was the figure she and Bess had seen in the boathouse, and who had chased Mrs. Cupp the night of the boathouse party.

Why he was hanging about the school, and was troubling Mrs. Cupp and her sister, Miss Sadie Vane, was explained by the story Susan had told Laura Polk about the boy who had been “Miss Vane’s bond-slave.” Nan could imagine grim Miss Vane being very severe with boys; nor did Mrs. Cupp love them.

Nan and Bess went down the long flight of subterranean stairs, quite as long, of course, as the outside steps down the face of the bluff. They finally came to an unsuspected cellar under the unused portion of the boathouse. There was a trap in the ceiling of this cellar, and it was open. Bess held the light and Nan reached up, took hold of the edges of the hole, and drew herself up into the room. Then she stooped down and gave her hand to Bess, who quickly came up with the lantern.

“Great!” gasped the eager Bess. “If Mrs. Cupp knew we were doing this, she’d have a sure-enough ‘conniption,’ as Laura calls it.”

“My! I hadn’t thought of that,” Nan said doubtfully.

“Oh, come on,” cried the more reckless Bess.

“Well—we’ve come, so far, we might as well see it through.”

Just then they heard excited voices outside.

“Oh! what’s that?” whispered Bess.

“It’s Walter’s voice!” Nan exclaimed.

“And that squeally one is the ghost’s,” Bess declared.

The two girls ran to the side door. It, likewise, was unlocked. On the step, Walter Mason held the smaller boy so that he could not get away.

“Hullo, girls!” was Walter’s greeting. “Why, Nan! I’m glad to see you out again. But what are you doing down here at the boathouse? And who is this chap I just caught coming out?”

“It’s the ghost,” cried Bess, giggling.

“I ain’t no ghost,” protested the boy in black, shivering in the cold. He wore no overcoat, his shoes were broken, and his hands uncovered.

“The ghost?” repeated Walter, puzzled. “Is he what frightened you girls around here?”

“And Mrs. Cupp! Oh, he frightened her awfully!” cried Bess.

“Well, I don’t care! she was mean to me,” declared the boy. “And Miss Vane tied my hands and feet to a chair and made me sit up all night in the dark. And now a feller who used to live at the poor farm and who I met when I ran away from Miss Vane told me that some money had been left me by my father’s uncle. And Miss Vane and Mrs. Cupp’s got it, I don’t doubt!”

“Who are you?” asked Nan, softly. “Don’t be afraid of us. If we can, we will help you. Bring him inside, Walter. It isn’t as cold here as it is out of doors. Do come in.”

“I’m Hiram Pease,” said the strange boy, plainly glad to tell his tale to anybody who showed sympathy. “Miss Vane took me from the poor farm. I’m an orphan. She treated me real mean. And I don’t like Mrs. Cupp, either. I don’t see how you girls stand her.”

“I guess she likes girls better than she does boys,” said Nan, quietly.

“And now I bet they have got that money from my great uncle, and I want it!” exclaimed Hiram, who seemed to be of a rather vindictive nature, and not a very pleasant person. He was underfed, undersized, and unhealthy looking.

“How have you lived here all this time?” cried Nan, pitying the boy.

“I stole some of that stuff you girls had for your party,” replied Hiram Pease, grinning. “And I took other things. I found that flight of steps up into the cellar of the Hall. So I could get to the kitchen at night.

“And then I worked around for some of the folks that live up on the back road; and others gave me things——”

“And I guess you helped yourself to some of my pigeons and squabs,” put in Walter, with some disgust. “I found where you roasted them.”

“Well! I had to eat somehow,” pleaded Hiram, in defense. “And if I ever get my money, I’ll pay you back.”

“What’ll we do with him?” asked Walter, of the girls.

“You take him home and feed him and give him an old overcoat to wear,” said the practical Nan.

“All right.”

“And let him tell your father about his money—if that’s true,” said Nan, more doubtfully. “Your father is a lawyer. He will know just what to do.”

“All right!” cried Walter, again. “I’ll do that. Come on, Hiram Beans——”

“Pease.”

“All right. Peas or Beans—what’s the odds?” said Walter, laughing. “What Nan says to do is always right.”

The boys departed, and then the chums hurried back to the hall by the subterranean passage. Nobody had discovered their absence; but afterward they told Dr. Prescott about their adventure, and the door in the partition between the trunk-room and the well was nailed up.

The girls all admitted that it was the very strangest thing that could possibly have happened! The Hall did not seem like itself. The students stood around in groups and talked about it. The reckless ones took advantage of it and did almost as they pleased. The more conscientious pupils said: “We must help Dr. Beulah all we can by being particularly good just now.” The younger pupils went past a certain closed door behind the main stairway on the first floor on their tiptoes and with hushed voices.

For four whole days nobody saw Mrs. Cupp about Lakeview Hall!

The girls were told that private business had called her away. But some of the older ones, especially friends of Nan and Bess, knew that it was Miss Vane’s business, and not the matron’s that had called the latter away. Mr. Mason had gone into court on behalf of young Hiram Pease, made the town farm authorities show cause why they had ever bound the boy out to Miss Vane, the village milliner, and made rather pointed inquiries as to what had become of the legacy that Hiram’s great uncle had left him.

In the end the local paper told all about it. And, really, there was nothing in the story to hurt Mrs. Cupp’s reputation, and the only fact brought out in the testimony against Miss Vane was that the maiden lady had not understood boys, and had been so harsh to Hiram that he had run away and for more than six months had haunted the old boathouse below Lakeview Hall, living precariously on what he could pilfer here and there.

In the end, Hiram’s affairs were straightened out and a kindly clergyman was made guardian of the boy during his minority. He was to have an education and a chance to be like other boys. Mrs. Cupp came back to her duties as grim as ever, and nobody dared to question her about it, least of all any of the girls.

The Christmas holidays were approaching, and Grace Mason brought an invitation from her mother for Nan Sherwood and Bess Harley to spend a portion of the vacation at the Mason home in Chicago. Bess accepted eagerly, for the Masons were very delightful people, and an invitation to their town house was a compliment indeed.

Nan, however, answered no. “I am sure I cannot do it, Gracie,” she said, over and over again. “I have to meet my father and mother when they come back from Scotland, and go home to Tillbury with them. And—and my school days are quite, quite ended. I shall have to begin to think of more serious things.”

She would give Walter no more satisfaction, either. Even when Mrs. Mason wrote a personal note to Nan, repeating the invitation, the girl could only write in return that she saw no possibility of circumstances allowing her to be with her friends in Chicago during the holidays.

This only goes to show how little we really know in this world of what is to happen to us, even in the immediate future; for if the reader cares to learn what actually happened to Nan and her friends that very vacation at the Mason city home, she need only read the next volume of this series, entitled: “Nan Sherwood’s Winter Holidays; Or, Rescuing the Runaways.”

How such a change came about in Nan’s plans and circumstances, was a great surprise, indeed.

The end of the term was in sight. Nan had caught up in her missed studies and her standing was very satisfactory, indeed. Dr. Prescott had praised her for her record.

“I shall be as sorry to lose you, my dear, as any pupil I ever had,” declared the preceptress. “And I still hope that some way may be found to make possible the continuation of your course here at the Hall.”

That had pleased Nan immensely; but she had no hope of the principal’s wish coming true. She tried to keep her record high to the very last day, not even neglecting Professor Krenner’s lectures upon architectural drawing.

Amelia and Nan attended the last of these one afternoon at the professor’s cabin, up the lake shore. They skated up the cove to the strait behind the Isle of Hope. In warm weather the girls sometimes went picnicking to the Isle of Hope. It was a rocky eminence thrust out of the lake, half a mile off the mainland.

Professor Krenner’s cabin was a very cozy place—a single big room, with a fireplace at either end in which the flames now leaped ruddily among the birch sticks, and with a corner cut off with Navajo blankets for a bedroom. One side wall was hung with the professor’s drawings; the one opposite with many cured skins of birds and beasts, for the professor was a taxidermist.

When the work of the architectural drawing class was over, Professor Krenner took his silver bugle down from the wall and went outside with the girls to wake the echoes on the Isle of Hope. He had just lifted the bugle to his lips and sent the first call ringing across the ice:

Ta-ra! ta-ra! ta-ra-ra-ra! Ta-rat! when Amelia seized Nan by the arm and cried:

“Oh! who’s coming?”

They all looked down the strait. A figure in a red cap was dashing up the ice at great speed, and waving a tippet in a most excited manner.

“Why!” gasped Nan. “It’s Bess!”

They went down to the shore to meet Nan’s chum. Bess rushed up to them and threw herself into Nan’s arms.

“Guess! Guess what’s happened, Nan Sherwood!” she fairly shrieked.

“I—I couldn’t,” gasped Nan, actually turning pale.

“You’ve got to! You’ve got to guess! It’s the very wonderfulest thing——”

“‘Wonderfulest’?” murmured “Procrastination Boggs.” “That’s a new one. I’m going to look it up.”

“I couldn’t guess, Bess,” said Nan again, weakly.

“You haven’t got to leave Lakeview Hall!” cried the delighted Bess. “You are coming back next term!”

Nan’s color came back. She sighed and wiped her eyes. But she shook her head slowly. “No, dear, I told you before I could not accept your father’s help. It would not be right,” said Nan.

“Oh, nonsense! Who said anything about that?” demanded Bess, in disgust. “I heard ’em talking about it! Things are all right! Your folks have got some money after all! And they sent me after you!”

“Who sent you after me?” suddenly cried Nan, seizing the reckless and excited Bess by the shoulders.

“Oh! oh! ouch! Dr. Beulah, of course!”

“What for?” demanded Nan, exasperated, and fairly shaking her.

“Why——Oh! didn’t I tell you? Nan dear! Your father! And your mother! They have just arrived from Scotland, and they are waiting for you now in Dr. Beulah’s office!”

Joy never kills—that is sure. But when she was folded in “Momsey’s” arms, and “Papa Sherwood” stood by waiting his turn to hug his plucky little daughter, Nan really thought her heart would burst, it beat so hard.

It was not until later that she heard about the money, or cared to ask about it. Her parents had settled their business in Scotland so suddenly and had left for the United States so hurriedly, that they could send no further news about the settlement of Hughie Blake’s legacy.

Under the Scotch law, no matter how many times a man has been married or how many children he has, he can will his personal property as he pleases. The two women who claimed the Laird of Emberon’s steward as their parent could fight in the courts for possession of his real estate only; and most of the wealth Hughie Blake had amassed was in cash-in-bank.

Therefore Mr. and Mrs. Sherwood came home amply supplied with funds and the possibility of poverty for the family retreated below the horizon for the time being, at least.

Mr. Sherwood purposed going into business at once, and Nan could return to Lakeview Hall at the opening of the succeeding term. Meanwhile the present term came to a happy conclusion, and Nan and Bess looked forward with gleeful expectation to their visit to Chicago immediately after Christmas.

THE END