"Hail, the conquering heroine comes!" cried Rhoda Hammond, as Nan entered the room.
"I see she didn't eat you up," remarked Bess with a smile.
"I suppose you are disappointed," laughed Nan, as she threw herself into a chair. "It would have been delightfully exciting if she had, wouldn't it? But talking of eating, let me have some of those chocolates, you stingy thing."
The last remark was addressed to Laura, who languidly took up the box of confections and handed it over to Nan.
"Where's Grace?" asked Nan, as she helped herself and cast her eyes over the group.
The question was answered by Grace herself, who at that moment burst into the room, waving a letter excitedly in her hand.
"Oh, girls, what do you think?" she exclaimed breathlessly.
"We never think," drawled Laura. "At least, my teachers tell me that I never do."
"Has some distant relative died and left you a fortune?" hazarded Bess.
"Better than that," cried Grace jubilantly.
"Can anything be better than that?" queried Laura.
"Tell us, Grace," adjured Nan. "Don't keep us on the anxious seat."
"I'm going to Palm Beach!" exclaimed Grace joyously. "Do you hear, girls? I'm going to Palm Beach for the winter holidays!"
The girls sprang up at the news and crowded around Grace.
"Palm Beach!" gasped Rhoda almost breathlessly.
"Why, Gracie Mason!" exclaimed Nan, "you must be talking in your sleep."
"You don't really and truly mean Palm Beach, Florida?" cried Laura, nearly choking on the big chocolate that slipped down her throat at the astounding news.
"I really mean Palm Beach, Florida," reiterated Grace, thoroughly enjoying the sensation she had created.
"Oh, you lucky, lucky girl!" breathed Bess, who until now had seemed too stunned by the news to utter a word.
"Lucky. Well, I should say," chimed in Laura. "Some people are born lucky, and Grace Mason is the luckiest of them all."
"How I wish I could go with you!" mourned Rhoda enviously.
"You can just guess we all wish that," acquiesced Nan. "You surely were born with a golden spoon in your mouth, Grace."
"It has been the dream of my life to go to Palm Beach," put in Rhoda.
"Now, Grace, just sit down here and tell us all about it," commanded Nan. "Every syllable. Do you hear?"
She piloted Grace to the biggest chair in the room and seated herself on one arm of it, while the others clustered around as closely as possible.
"Well," began Grace, "mother and dad have been thinking about it for some time, but they wouldn't tell us about it until the last minute because they wanted to surprise us. Just as soon as I got the news, I flew right over here to tell you girls about it."
"It's too splendid!" exclaimed Laura. "Where are you going to stay while you are there? Or perhaps it's too early to have settled that yet."
"At the Royal Poinciana," replied Grace happily. "Oh, my!"
"The Royal Poinciana!" exclaimed all the girls in one breath.
"Why, Grace," marveled Rhoda. "That's the very swellest hotel even in Palm Beach."
"Well, what of that?" smiled Grace. "Can't wego to the swellest hotel if we want to?—and if dad's cash holds out?"
"No reason in the world, if you're lucky enough to be able to," was Rhoda's envious reply. "It costs a small fortune to live there even for a short time, as I suppose you know."
"I suppose," chaffed Laura, "that you'll be so stuck up when you get back that you won't speak to your old friends."
"No danger of that," laughed Grace, as she looked lovingly about at the eager faces of her friends.
"How long are you going to stay?" queried Nan.
"I don't know yet," answered Grace slowly. "The holidays last for only two weeks, you know, and mother and dad are so anxious that I shouldn't lose anything of my school course that they'll probably send me back at the end of the two weeks, though they may stay a little longer. I only wish the holidays were four weeks long instead of two."
"How are you ever coming back after two weeks of that sort of life?" asked Laura. "If I were only lucky enough once to get there I'd never want to come back."
"Just think of whatfunyou can have there," remarked Bess Harley. "I suppose you'll play tennis. What joy to be able to play tennis and get your nose sunburned in the middle of winter. Think of you playing tennis in Palm Beach sunshine while we are shivering around fires."
"And golf?" suggested Nan.
"Not that," laughed Grace. "I don't know a mashie from a cleek."
"Of course there'll be boating," suggested Bess.
"And bathing," added Laura with emphasis. "Oh, Grace, I'm just dying of envy! Think of bathing in January with the water as warm as it is here in August!"
"Take care you don't get drowned, Gracie," warned Nan, in mock seriousness. "And look out for sharks. I hear that they're seen occasionally at Palm Beach."
"For goodness' sake, Nan!" cried Laura reprovingly, "don't even suggest anything unpleasant in connection with that celestial spot. There's nothing to be found there but pure, unalloyed bliss."
"Only think of the dances at the hotel!" said Bess, with shining eyes.
"And the fellows," put in Laura mischievously. "Oh, Grace, Grace, what opportunities for sitting out dances on those wonderful balconies!"
"And the long strolls in the moonlight," added Nan, giving Grace a nudge with her elbow.
"Or sitting on the beach with some eligible young millionaire, listening to the waves beating on the sand," teased Rhoda.
"Oh, it's all too wonderful!" exclaimed Laura, suddenly starting up and pulling Grace out of the chair.
Forgetting the lateness of the hour, she started in a mad whirl about the room.
"Hush!" cautioned Nan, as a firm footfall was heard in the corridor.
In a twinkling two motionless forms lay in Nan's bed. Rhoda had switched off the light, and the high backs of chairs and sofa hid crouching figures, while the almost too regular breathing of the supposed sleepers was the only sound to be heard when the door opened and the severe and angular form of Mrs. Cupp stood outlined in the dim light from the corridor.
After a survey of several minutes of the dark and seemingly innocent room, the guardian of school discipline seemed satisfied, closed the door, and her footsteps died away at the end of the hall.
If she could have heard the bursts of smothered laughter as the lights were turned on and Laura and Bess, almost exhausted by their efforts to keep up that steady breathing, tumbled from the bed and the others rose from their hiding places and shook and stretched themselves to get the cramps out of their limbs!
"That was a close call," gurgled Nan, breathless with suppressed laughter, while Grace asked chokingly:
"How did you ever do that sleeping act so perfectly and keep it up so long?"
"Just genius," answered Laura complacently. "I got so in the spirit of it that I came near snoring."
"Is that so?" scoffed Rhoda. "Strange that we never noticed it before."
"Live and learn," replied Laura, nonchalantly."The explanation is simple. Just lack of perception. 'Ye have eyes and ye see not.'"
"For pity's sake, keep still, you two," said Bess. "We have too many things to talk about to listen to repartee, even to such brilliant specimens."
"Snubbed!" groaned Laura, as she lifted the last bonbon from the box.
"Here, greedy," said Rhoda. "I saw that candy first."
"Well, I ate it first," grinned Laura tantalizingly.
"Will you girls keep still?" cried Bess despairingly. "I want to find out what Grace is going to wear."
"Yes, sweetheart," said Rhoda meekly, as she flopped down into the nearest seat at hand. "That is really a most interesting and all-important question, and we will come to that anon. But first I want to remark that I feel as though we had been nearly caught at a regular spread."
"Spread! Where have I heard that word before?" exclaimed Laura dramatically. "Isn't it time we had a regular one? I tell you what, girls, let's celebrate by having a real honest-to-goodness spread. There's a reason."
"As if you ever needed a reason for having a spread!" laughed Bess. "But I second the motion."
"I'm expecting a box from home any minute," said Rhoda, "and I'll donate it to the cause."
"I'll furnish the fruit," Grace offered.
"Dandy!" exclaimed Laura. "Put me down for cocoa and milk and sugar. Will you supply the sandwiches, Nan?"
"I'm willing to furnish the sandwiches," agreed Nan, a little doubtfully. "But do you think we'd better have it just now?"
"Oh, come on, Nan," urged Laura. "Be a sport. Isn't Grace worth a chance?"
And Nan, unwilling to spoil the others' sport, assented, though with some inward misgiving.
"Can't we go to town to-morrow after recitations, and get the things?" Bess proposed.
"O. K.," acquiesced Laura contentedly. "And now to return to the vital question. What, Grace darling, are you going to wear at Palm Beach?"
"I'd like to get new gowns and things," Grace replied; "but it's hard to get summer clothes in winter. Of course, I've got last summer's things."
"I'd feel that I was pretty well fitted out already if I hadyourlast summer's things," observed Laura.
"I should say as much!" agreed Rhoda. "The idea of Grace Mason needing a new summer outfit. What's the objection to that lovely crêpe de chine that made me green with envy when you wore it last summer?"
"Or that voile with the heliotrope flowers?" supplemented Nan. "Or the white net with the embroidered flounces?"
"Or that blue taffeta that you looked so stunning in at the garden party?" said Rhoda.
"Or the old rose georgette with the touch of black velvet, to say nothing of half a dozen others?" added Bess.
"Since you are resurrecting the old gowns so vigorously," laughed Grace, "I begin to think I may get through without so many new things after all, especially as the old gowns will be new to the people I shall meet at Palm Beach. Of course mother will have a dressmaker, and she'll alter and freshen up and make a few new things. But she can't do such a very great deal in the little time from now to the holidays. If it was any other place than Palm Beach, I wouldn't even think about dress. But it's such a very swell place, you know, girls, and I don't want to feel out of place while I'm there. Of course you know how I feel."
"Sure we do," Laura assured her. "But I'll guarantee that with what you have and what you'll be able to add, you'll feel very much in it, even at Palm Beach."
"And now, ladies," said Rhoda, "that the all-important subject of dress is disposed of, I move that Nan pass around for our refreshment those fine Florida oranges I see on the table there."
Nan laughingly complied, and Bess suddenly exclaimed as she peeled the rind from her orange:
"This reminds me, Grace. How will it seem tobe walking through lovely orange groves with the beautiful golden fruit showing between the leaves?"
"And," Nan supplemented, "to be able to pick and eat the oranges with the warmth of the sun upon them! I have heard that the flavor is very different from what we are accustomed to."
"And imagine," Rhoda added longingly, "not only being able to feast on the delicious oranges but to have the fragrance of the wonderful blossoms all around you as you walk through the groves."
"Oh, girls, girls!" cried Grace, "you make me impatient to be there at this very minute. There's one thing," she added quizzically, "if no other orange blossoms ever come my way, I'll at least have had those."
"No need for you to worry about that," returned Laura, "with that young Palm Beach millionaire—or is it billionaire?—waiting to greet you and some day crown that fair brow of thine with fragrant orange blooms. Methinks I can already smell their fragrance and hear the strains of the justly celebrated wedding march of Mendelssohn."
"What vivid imaginations some people have," returned Grace calmly.
"Oh, dear," sighed Nan musingly, "doesn't it seem a shame that everybody can't have wonderful things? If only a very small part of the surplus wealth could be divided among those who are struggling just to live, what a different world this wouldbe. It doesn't seem right that so many people should have everything and others have little else than work and worry. Those people at Palm Beach have wealth, luxury, everything to make life splendid, while others have so little. Things certainly are uneven in this world. Take Mrs. Bragley, for instance."
"I tell you what we'll do, girls," said Grace impulsively. "We'll make a spread for Mrs. Bragley as well as for ourselves."
"Fine!" ejaculated Rhoda. "We'll fill a basket with canned meat and some potatoes and——"
"No, no," interrupted Grace impulsively, "not those things. Let's give her a real spread with something out of the ordinary."
"Jellies," proposed Bess.
"Glass jars of imported strawberries and cherries," suggested Laura.
"A great bunch of those wonderful California grapes," contributed Grace.
"And some Florida oranges," added Nan.
"Great!" commented Grace. "When shall we do it?"
"Let's see," mused Nan. "We have our Latin class at two. We'll be through by three. Let's make it three-thirty o'clock to-morrow."
"I'm afraid you'll have to go without me," said Grace. "I promised mother I'd answer her letter right away, so I'll have to get that off to-morrow."
"I can't go either," said Laura. "I have those French exercises to make up before to-morrow night. I'd like to go, but I suppose I can't with that to do."
"Then, Bess," said Nan, "you and Rhoda and I will be a committee of three to wait on Mrs. Bragley to-morrow."
"Girls, isn't it warm in here?" questioned Laura.
"Warm? With the heating plant broken down?" queried Nan.
"It feels warm and I'm going to open a window," went on Laura, and, suiting the action to the word, she shoved up a window that was handy.
"Br-r-r!" came from several of the others.
"My, but that's cold!"
"We'll all get sick!"
"I know a way to fix Laura!" cried Rhoda, and, as she spoke, the girl from Rose Ranch leaned out of the window and reached upward.
"What are you going to do?" asked Bess.
"Get an icicle for her," answered Rhoda, and a moment later brought to view an icicle she had broken away from a projection above the window. The icicle was all of a foot and a half long and an inch or more in thickness.
"No, you don't!" cried Laura, leaping away as Rhoda came after her with the bit of ice. "Don't you dare to put that thing down my neck!"
"It will cool you off, Laura," said Rhoda; butjust then she slipped and went down, shattering the icicle into fragments.
"No more noise," whispered Bess, closing the window.
At that moment, Nan's clock, sounding the first stroke of midnight, startled the girls.
"The hour indeed waxeth late," whispered Laura, and vanished.
One by one the others noiselessly followed. There was the almost inaudible sound of softly closing doors, and quiet reigned over Lakeview Hall.
In Nan's room for the second time that night there was the sound of measured breathing, but this time it was genuine.
"Ugh!" shivered Nan the next morning when she came into the room after her bath. "This isn't Palm Beach, is it, Bess? More like the North Pole, eh?"
"Palm Beach," echoed Bess disgustedly, as she reluctantly slipped out of her warm bed and reached for her bathrobe. "It reminds me of it—it's so different. When that horrid old rising gong sounded, I was dreaming that I was there standing on the beach ready for a swim. I can feel that warm sand about my feet now," and she gave her cold little feet a vicious shove into her far from warm bedroom slippers.
"I don't believe Grace has slept much," smiled Nan.
"I know she hasn't," returned Bess, as she hurriedly dressed. "I'm sure I wouldn't have slept a wink if I had been in her place. I believe I'd just die if I were."
"Then," returned Nan cheerfully, fastening the last snapper in her belt, "I'm exceedingly glad you'renot in Grace's place, for I prefer to see you alive a little longer."
They found Grace and Rhoda already in the lower hall, and knew by their flushed faces that last night's news was still the fascinating topic of conversation. All joined in, and were soon so absorbed that Laura's voice made them start.
"Beginning where you left off last night?" she was asking. "I don't believe Grace went to bed at all, but just sat up and anticipated all night long."
"Not quite so bad as that," laughed Grace. "I went to bed, but I confess that I was too excited to sleep very much."
"It's perfectly safe to say that all of us dreamed of Palm Beach, anyway," Bess conjectured.
"I did," replied Laura, chuckling at the remembrance. "I dreamed I was standing on one of those great broad piazzas. The moon was shining so brightly that the palm trees stood out clearly, and the gleam of the spray could be plainly seen as the breakers came rolling up on the beach. The air was warm and delightful, and I was thinking how happy I was to be there and of you unlucky girls shivering here at Lakeview Hall, when a gong clanged, some one shouted 'fire,' and smoke came pouring out of the hotel windows. I was so frightened I woke up and found that old rising gong getting in its work. I tell you, girls, I was mad enough to bite somebody."
"Serves you right for leaving us here to freeze when you could so easily have taken us with you," joked Nan.
Several times while the girls were chatting, Linda Riggs and Cora Courtney had passed very close to them in an effort to hear what they were so excitedly talking about. But the girls had purposely lowered their voices till, when the two passed, they were talking in whispers. It was a great satisfaction to get Linda so keyed up with curiosity.
"Some people are afraid to speak aloud," Linda remarked to Cora, during one of their walks past the group, "because they don't dare let people know what they're talking about."
"They seem to think it's smart to be mysterious," sniffed Cora.
But when they reached the end of the corridor, Linda stopped and said:
"What do you suppose they are talking about anyway? I bet they are hatching up something. I'd give my eyes to find out what it is, especially if Nan Sherwood is in it."
"You love her, don't you?" Cora asked sarcastically.
"As I love poison ivy," Linda snapped vindictively. "I never could bear her."
"She was ordered to Doctor Beulah's room yesterday," said Cora. "I bet she got a calling down for nearly killing that woman."
"That's something I never did," sneered Linda; "nearly kill any one. Of course, I'm glad no serious harm came to the woman. I don't want to see her hurt. But what fun it would have been, to see Nan Sherwood up in court for manslaughter."
Just at that moment Bess Harley, who had gone up to her room for a handkerchief, came down the stairs and heard the spiteful remark. Shocked and indignant, she said angrily:
"Of course, Linda Riggs, I know what makes you say those horrid things about Nan. It's because she beat you in the race yesterday. And that wasn't the last time, either. She'll always beat you, because she's worth a dozen of you."
Bess had unconsciously raised her voice, and Nan, hearing the angry words, came quickly, and, laying her hand soothingly on her chum's arm, said:
"Don't mind, dear, come along," and drew her gently away.
They passed into the breakfast room, while Linda, who had found no answer ready, looked after them vindictively.
She turned to Cora, and, giving her foot a vicious stamp, said:
"Never mind, I'll see that Nan Sherwood gets all that's coming to her."
"What do you mean?" asked Cora, her curiosity aroused.
"I haven't thought it all out," snapped Linda, "butI have an idea, a big idea. I'll tell you what it is later."
Lessons rather dragged that morning. The girls were impatient to get together and talk. A thousand things they had heard and read of the glories of Palm Beach came between them and the printed page, and questions that burned to be asked would persist in pushing their lessons from their minds. Everybody was relieved by the ripple of laughter that went round the class when Laura, a question of capital cities coming up, slipped and said that the capital of Florida was the Royal Poinciana.
Her teacher stared.
"I beg your pardon, Laura?" she said frigidly.
Laura reddened.
"I—I—meant Palm Beach," she stammered. "Er—er—I should say, I meant Tallahassee."
The girls who were in the secret of Grace's forthcoming trip giggled and looked meaningly at each other, and the recitation went on. But the slowest quarter hours will pass at last, and on this day they merged into hours and finally brought three o'clock and freedom.
"That's over at last! Did you ever live through such a long day?" asked Nan, as she put away her books and took her coat from the form. "Now for Mrs. Bragley."
"But first," said Bess, snatching up a small bonbon dish from the table, "we've got to have funds,and 'the collection will now be taken.' My, but you girls are generous!" she exclaimed exultantly, after she had counted up the donations. "Mrs. Bragley is going to havesomespread!"
The committee of three went around by way of the town in order to purchase materials for the surprise spread for the woman they had run down. When the basket was filled they fairly reveled in the attractiveness of its contents. Boxes of crisp delicate crackers, tumblers of jelly, jars of imported strawberries and cherries, a bunch of California grapes that Rhoda said she was sure would weigh three pounds, and some unusually fine Florida oranges. Piling the basket on the sled that they had brought with them, they started gaily off, dragging it behind them.
After they had covered half the distance a voice hailed them, and Walter came dashing up behind them in his cutter. Reining in the spirited horse he was driving, he cried:
"Jump in, girls. It's a dandy day for a spin."
But they laughingly refused.
"Too many of us for that cutter," said Rhoda. "We'd make an awful load."
"And we don't want any men around anyway, to-day," laughed Bess.
Walter heard, but he saw only Nan's glowing face. What he thought about that face was plainly to be read in his eyes.
"Isn't there anything that I can do for you?" he asked. "Don't you want me to run the basket up to the cottage for you?"
"No, thanks," replied Nan. "We're getting along finely. It's awfully good of you, just the same."
Walter chirped to his horse, still with his eyes on Nan's smiling face, and, lifting his hat, drove on.
After Walter left it did not take the girls with their sled long to reach Sarah Bragley's modest little cottage.
Mrs. Ellis opened the door at their knock.
"How is Mrs. Bragley to-day?" Nan asked, as they went in.
"As well as can be expected," replied the nurse. "She had a little fever last night, but not enough to be at all anxious about."
"Has the doctor been here to-day?" queried Rhoda.
"Yes," was the reply, "about an hour ago."
"What did he say?"
"He says she is doing very well," Mrs. Ellis answered. "The only thing that gives him any concern is her lack of appetite. If he can coax that, he thinks she will soon be well."
"Perhaps these things will tempt her," remarked Nan, as she emptied the contents of the basket upon the table.
"How splendid!" exclaimed the nurse. "They arejust the things she needs. I'll go and tell her that you are here, and you can take them in to her."
Left alone, the girls glanced around them. A warm fire blazed in the stove. Everything in the room was spotless.
"Doesn't it look nice?" observed Bess.
"Couldn't be any neater or more comfortable," judged Nan with satisfaction. "I'm so glad we could get Mrs. Ellis."
"She's a jewel, and no mistake," affirmed Rhoda.
At Mrs. Ellis' invitation, the three girls trooped into Mrs. Bragley's room. They were delighted to find her propped up in bed and looking very cheerful and comfortable.
"I'm glad to see you, young ladies," was her greeting to them. And she looked with pleasure into the bright faces as the girls clustered about the bed.
"You are feeling pretty good to-day, Mrs. Ellis tells us," said Nan brightly.
"Oh, very much better," was the reply. "I ought to when I have so many kind friends."
Just then the nurse came in, bringing the delicacies that the girls had purchased.
"See what these friends have brought you," she said, as she lifted the things one by one from the basket and placed them on a table by the side of the bed.
Mrs. Bragley's eyes grew wet with sudden tears.
"You are too good to me, young ladies! What kind hearts there are in the world!"
The oranges especially seemed to please her, and Mrs. Ellis prepared one for her.
"How good that orange tastes," she remarked. "I've always been very fond of them. At one time I thought I'd be owning a whole grove of them. But that was just a dream."
"What do you mean?" Rhoda asked, with interest.
"Well, dearie," answered the woman, evidently pleased with Rhoda's interest, "some years ago my husband thought he saw his way to make a little fortune for us. He heard of a company in Florida that was developing orange lands, and it looked so good to him that he bought a share in it. He thought he was going to make money enough out of it to make us safe for life. But nothing ever came of it."
"Where was this land?" asked Nan.
"Let me see," mused Mrs. Bragley, wrinkling her brow with the effort to remember. "It was somewhere in Florida, but I can't remember the name. It was—it was—I can't just think. Not that it matters much, anyhow, but I hate to forget things that way. Sun—sun—Sunny Slopes. That's what the name was."
"What a pretty name!" cried Bess.
"Yes. But that's about all that was pretty about it," replied Mrs. Bragley, with a weak smile. "Myhusband invested almost all his savings in it because he thought it was going to make him rich."
"When was that?" asked Nan, who was growing deeply interested.
"Only a short time before his death," came the answer sadly.
"But haven't you heard anything about it since?" queried Bess wonderingly. "You may really be rich, for all you know."
Mrs. Bragley smiled wanly.
"Not much chance of that, I fear," she replied. "I have written again and again, but have never received any answer to my letters. I'm afraid it was all a swindle."
"You must have papers of some kind," observed Nan.
"Yes," the woman assented. "They're in that bottom drawer there, if you'll trouble to get them for me."
Nan opened the drawer indicated and took from it a packet of papers. The documents bore marks of frequent folding and unfolding.
"May I look at them?" Nan asked, as she brought them to the bedside.
"Surely," was the ready answer. "And if one of you will just hand me my specs, I'll look over them with you and tell you all about them."
The three girls bent eagerly over Mrs. Bragley as she opened one paper after the other, prospectuses,several of them, highly colored illustrated leaflets and descriptive circulars. Then came a certificate for forty shares in the Sunny Slopes Development Company. The only individual name on any of the papers seemed to be that of Jacob Pacomb, who, it appeared, was the manager and the developer of the tract.
"It's extremely strange that no answer ever came to any of your letters," remarked Rhoda, as she scanned the documents. "Did any of the letters ever come back?"
"Not one," was the reply.
"Perhaps the man did not receive them," conjectured Nan.
"In that case," Mrs. Bragley replied, "the letters would have been returned to me, as I put my name and address on the outside."
"This man, Pacomb," suggested Bess, "may have died and all of the letters may have been destroyed."
"That wouldn't be very likely," objected Nan. "Some one would probably have settled up the business or taken it over and kept on with it. In either case, the letters would almost surely have been answered."
"I have thought of all that," the woman replied; "and that is why I think it must have been all a fraud. If I had been able to spare the money I would have taken a trip to Florida and looked into
the matter myself, but I never felt that I could afford it."
The three girls bent eagerly over Mrs. Bragley as she opened one paper after another. (See page 65)The three girls bent eagerly over Mrs. Bragley as she opened one paper after another. (See page65)
"It is too bad you couldn't have gone," said Rhoda thoughtfully; "for if there was fraud you would then at least have found it out and could have had somebody punished. It looks to me that, knowing you were a widow and without means to look into things, they have deliberately held back any money that might have been coming to you and cheated you out of your rights."
The girls had been so interested in the papers and the story that went with them that they had thought of nothing else. Now Nan, suddenly glancing up, noticed that the old face looked white and tired. She rose at once.
"I'm afraid we've stayed too long," she said penitently. "We ought to have remembered that Mrs. Bragley isn't strong."
She replaced the papers in the drawer, smoothed the bed covers, and gave the injured woman a comforting pat on the shoulders.
"I hope you will be well again very soon," she said, "and then perhaps some way will be found to look into this matter."
"Anyway, we're going to try to do something about it," promised Rhoda as they took their leave.
The girls found when they got outside that it had begun to snow.
"Looks to me as if we were in for another storm," was Rhoda's comment, as they trudged along.
"Who cares?" cried Bess, catching up a handful of the snow and making a snowball.
"You can't hit anything," scoffed Nan. "Try it."
"All right, here goes for the blacksmith shop," answered Bess gaily, for they were almost directly in front of the little smithy.
"Gracious! Going to try to hit the whole building?" queried the girl from Rose Ranch.
"A blind man could do that," added Nan.
"I'm going to hit the door—the very middle of the door," answered Bess.
"Oh, Bess! if the man is inside, what will he think?" said Nan.
"I don't care what he thinks," was the quick reply. "Here goes!"
Away flew the snowball, and it must be admitted that Bess's aim was decidedly good, for the snowball sailed directly for the center of the door of the smithy.
But as the girl launched the snowball the door of the blacksmith shop opened and a man came forth.
Spat! the snowball landed directly in the man's face!
"My gracious, Bess, see what you have done!" cried Nan.
"You certainly hit the bull's eye that time," was Rhoda's comment.
"Oh!" was the only word Bess could utter, and she stood there in the roadway, her arm still poised high in the air as when she had thrown the snowball.
"Hi, you! Wot yer mean by heavin' snowballs at me?" screamed the man, as he wiped the snow from his face. "You let me alone! I ain't done no harm, I ain't."
He waved his hands wildly in the air. The girls now noticed that he was in tatters and had a very red nose, doubtless made redder than ever by the snowball.
"Come, move on now," said a voice from the smithy, and a tall man wearing a leather apron appeared. "I told you before I'd not have you hanging around here. Git!"
"I ain't gonner be snowballed!" cried the tramp,for such he was. "Tain't fair. I'm an honest man, I am. You lemme alone."
"I'll do worse than snowball you if you don't clear out, and that mighty quick," cried the blacksmith. "I know what you came in this place for—you came to steal horseshoes and then sell 'em over to Beavertown."
"I didn't—I came in to git warm," sniveled the tramp. But then, as the blacksmith reached for a whip, he fairly ran down the snowy road and out of sight.
"Wasn't I lucky?" said Bess, when the girls had explained matters to the blacksmith and moved on once more in the direction of the hall. "Only a tramp, and it might have been the blacksmith himself!"
"Well, we admit your aim was good," answered Nan drily.
As they made their way back to the school the girls talked over the matter of Mrs. Bragley's property. They came across Grace in the hall, and, bearing her off to Nan's room, told her the story of Sunny Slopes.
"Why!" exclaimed Grace, as a thought suddenly struck her, "I'll have dad look that up while we're down at Palm Beach. You know he's a lawyer. Maybe Sunny Slopes isn't far from where we'll be staying. I'll get him to see what he can do."
"That will be perfectly darling!" exclaimed Nanenthusiastically, and the others heartily agreed with her.
The next day, while returning from town where they had been stocking up for the feast they had promised themselves, they again met Walter Mason.
"Hello, girls," he called, as he came up to them.
"Hello, Palm Beach," returned Laura.
"So you've heard about it, have you?" Walter responded, with a laugh.
"Have we?" replied Nan. "We haven't heard or talked or thought of anything else since Grace told us."
"Of course you're going along?" said Bess questioningly.
"Of course," Walter answered. "But, to tell the truth, I'm not a bit eager to go. I'd rather stay right here."
They chatted a few minutes longer, and then Walter left them and the girls resumed their walk toward the school.
"Why do you suppose Walter would rather stay here than go to Palm Beach?" Laura asked innocently of no one in particular.
"That isn't hard to guess," replied Bess, with a mischievous glance at Nan. "What do you think about it, Nan?"
"I haven't any opinion," answered Nan demurely. "What I do know, though, is that we'll have to hurry if we get back to the school before dark."
That night had been set for the "spread," and the girls went early to their rooms to get their lessons for the next day out of the way. A most unusual and unnatural silence reigned in Nan's room for nearly two hours. It was broken by a book snapping shut as Bess sprang to her feet, exclaiming with satisfaction:
"There, that's done! And it's the last, thank fortune."
"Same here," answered Nan happily, as she gathered books and paper together and tossed them into a far corner of the room.
"Why, Nan!" exclaimed Bess in surprise, glancing at the clock, "where do you suppose the girls are? They were to be on hand at ten o'clock, and it's now five minutes after."
"Lessons," replied Nan laconically. "They'll be here any second now."
As she spoke the door opened softly, and Laura slipped in with a bundle of things in her arms. Placing them on the table, she went back and softly closed the door.
"Do you know, girls," she said in a low tone, "I met Linda Riggs as I was coming through the hall, and her eyes were two big bundles of curiosity when she saw the things in my arms. I shouldn't be surprised——"
Suddenly, without waiting to finish the sentence, she went back to the door, opened it quickly andstepped out into the hall to see Linda, looking red and confused, walking hurriedly away.
Laura called after her.
"Was there anything you wanted, Linda?" she inquired sweetly.
"No, thank you," came the pert rejoinder. "Not now. Later, perhaps."
Laura returned.
"Of all the mean, sneaking——" she began, but Nan laughingly interrupted.
"There, there, Laura, what's the use? Don't give her a second thought."
"She isn't worth it, that's a fact," Laura contented herself with saying, and the next minute the entrance of the other girls laden with parcels put anything else out of her mind.
Rhoda's box, much to the girl's uneasiness, had been delayed, but had come that night just before dinner. Now she deposited it unopened on a chair.
"I thought it would be fun to open it here and see what blessings it had in store for us," she explained, as she proceeded to open and unpack it.
"Blessings!" echoed Nan. "Well, I should say they were," she added, as, one after another, a big layer cake, a small fruit cake, some cakes prettily iced, bottles of choice olives, salted almonds and peanuts, jars of jelly and marmalade, fruit, and a big package of fresh assorted bonbons were drawn from the box.
"Oh, for pity's sake, girls, let's hurry and get at them," cried Laura. "My mouth's fairly watering for them."
As she spoke, she drew Nan's spirit lamp from its shelf and soon had the water for cocoa boiling in a small saucepan.
"Why in the world," said Grace as she set the plates and cups and saucers on the table, "did we go and buy all these things? If we'd only known what that box was going to hold we wouldn't have needed half of them."
"No matter, the sandwiches and ice cream will come in well," said Laura. "That is," she added, "if there's anything of the ice cream left. I put it outside the minute we got it here, but it's had a long time to wait."
"It won't have to wait much longer," exulted Bess, as the girls gathered around the table and the feast began.
"Hey! don't let Grace cut that fruit cake yet," said Nan, her mouth full of cream cheese sandwich. "There won't be a raisin left for the rest of us."
"If you eat many more sandwiches," laughed Grace, "you won't have room left for even a raisin." And she calmly proceeded not only to cut the cake, but to help herself to a very generous slice.
"Um-um—this is good," she said. "Fruit cake is my special weakness."
"Yes, and it's our duty to help you conquer that weakness," remarked Laura virtuously, as she drew the fruit cake over to her side of the table.
"Now where did I put that sugar bowl?" asked Bess, as she finished pouring her third cup of cocoa.
"Here it is," replied Rhoda, as she accommodatingly handed over a small glass bowl from which Bess helped herself to a generous double spoonful. One swallow of her cocoa, and she began to sputter and gasp, and finally made a frantic grab for a tumbler of water.
"What on earth is the matter with the child?" asked Laura.
"Salt," Bess managed to articulate. "You gave me the salt, Rhoda, instead of the sugar. Oh, what a dose!"
The girls wanted to shout with laughter, but caution made them smother it as much as possible. And just at this juncture, the door opened part way without even one little warning squeak, and a severe voice said:
"Young ladies, report to me at my office at noon to-morrow."
The girls, their laughter quenched, gazed at each other for a few seconds with stupefaction. Then Nan sprang to the door, opened it, and caught sight of a silently scurrying figure that could not by any means be confounded with Mrs. Cupp's angular form or slow, measured movements.
The other girls, astonished, gazed at Nan open-mouthed as she re-entered the room with flushed and indignant face and uttered the one enlightening word:
"Linda."
"It sure was!"
"Of all the nerve!" began Laura slowly.
"Of all the meanness, I should say," amended Rhoda indignantly, as she turned the key in the door.
Then the funny side struck them, and they sat doubled up with suppressed laughter.
With increased hilarity the feast went on. The ice cream was brought in and found to be in a very creditable state of preservation, and the layer cakeand small iced cakes were very soon being gobbled up.
To illustrate that "variety is the spice of life," so she said, Laura had just followed some ice cream with a sour pickle, when a footstep neared the door and a stern voice commanded them to open it.
"Linda," whispered Grace to Bess, who was nearest her, while Laura said in a perfectly audible though subdued voice:
"You can just go about your business, you essence of meanness."
"You needn't think you can work that trick on us twice," added Grace.
"Don't judge our intellects by your own," scoffed Rhoda. "You must think we were born yesterday."
The girls laughed at the sally, and silence ensued for a moment.
"I guess that has disposed of Linda for the rest of the night," exulted Laura, and she applied herself again to the now rapidly melting ice cream.
"Let's finish this cream while the eating's good," laughed Nan, when her spoon was arrested on its way to her mouth by a voice outside the door.
"Nan Sherwood, I command you to open this door."
In overwhelming consternation the girls rose to their feet, and Nan unlocked and opened the door.
Quivering with anger and outraged dignity, Mrs. Cupp swept the room with flashing eyes.
"You will go to your rooms, young ladies, and you will all report at Dr. Prescott's room to-morrow morning at ten o'clock," she decreed, and, turning, moved majestically down the corridor, leaving black consternation behind her.
"Now, we are in for it!" gasped Rhoda, as the sound of footsteps died away.
Too overwhelmed to say another word, the others slipped away to their rooms.
The next morning, with many inward quakings, they entered the principal's room. Dr. Prescott's voice was severe as she said to the five caught-in-the-act delinquents:
"You are ready to admit, I presume, that you have broken one of the rules of the school. That I can understand. But that you should have been guilty of disrespect to one of the officers of the school is quite another and more serious thing. Have you any explanation to offer?"
After a moment's silence, Nan acted as spokesman.
"We did not intend to be disrespectful to Mrs. Cupp," she declared, and then went on and told the whole story.
"That puts things in a better light," said Dr. Prescott, when Nan had finished. "But to make you more careful in future and to remind you that the rules of Lakeview Hall are made to be observed, not ignored, I will forbid you all to go outside thegrounds for three full days. You can go now to your recitations."
The girls bowed and withdrew, and for the rest of the morning they were unusually quiet. At noon they gathered in Laura's room, dropped into the nearest chairs at hand, and looked at each other lugubriously.
"Three days without poking our noses outside the gates!" mourned Bess. "How are we ever going to stand it?"
"I don't care much for that," commented Rhoda. "But I hate to give that Linda Riggs anything to gloat over."
"And she will," declared Grace. "She'll make the very most of it, you can be sure."
"She will."
"Oh, well, let her then," said Laura, recovering something of her usual spirits. "Say, girls, did you see the expression on Cupp's face when we opened the door?"
They burst into a merry laugh at the remembrance, and the laugh lessened the tension and did them good.
"Oh!" gasped Laura, as she wiped the tears from her eyes, "I shall remember that look when I'm an old woman."
"I suspect Cupp will remember the occasion, too, for many days to come," prophesied Nan.
"I wish there had been a glass opposite the door,so that she could have seen her face," remarked Bess, going off into another gale of laughter.
"Come on," said Rhoda, when they had settled down. "Let's go for a walk on the campus and get some fresh air. Thank goodness, we can do that, anyway."
"Oh, dear," sighed Nan, as they went downstairs. "No coasting, no skating for three days. What a fate!"
"No matter," comforted Grace. "The feast was worth it. The memory lingers."
"It does," agreed Laura. "I can taste that layer cake yet. But come, girls, I challenge you to a race around the campus. One, two, three—go!"
"Wait until I make certain my shoe is tight," cried Grace.
"And wait until I get my cap fastened on," added Nan.
"No primping now!" exclaimed Laura. "Everybody ready?"
"What's the prize?" questioned Bess. "I can't run well unless I know it's worth it."
"You get the hole out of a doughnut," said Nan. "All sugared over, too."
"And a glass of frozen ice-water," added Grace.
"This is all the way around the campus," went on Laura. "No cutting corners, remember. You must follow the trees and the hedge. One cent fine if you don't. All ready? One—two—three, go!"
With wild shouts and much laughter the race around the campus was on.
Nan won "by a nose," as Laura rather slangily put it, and the girls, glowing and breathless, looked like anything else than confessed law-breakers doing penance.
The sight of their happy faces was too much for Linda, who, with Cora, was passing them, drawing theGay Girland carrying their skates over their shoulders.
"Some people try mighty hard to show that they're having a good time," she remarked to her companion.
"Blessings brighten as they take their flight, as the girl said when she couldn't leave the campus," grinned Cora maliciously.
"Well," countered Nan, "at least we're not doing penance for sneaking in the dark and listening at doors."
The flush on Linda's face showed that the shot had reached the mark.
"You think you know a lot, don't you?" she mocked, as she and Cora went on.
"How I detest that Nan Sherwood," hissed Linda. "I'll get square with her some day, and that day isn't so far off either. I know just how I'm going to fix her."
"Why do you keep on being so mysterious?" asked Cora impatiently. "You're always hinting and gettingmy curiosity aroused and then stopping short. Go on and tell me now."
But Linda refused, saying that she wanted to be sure first that her plans would go through all right.
"When I do spring things," she said, "I'll square up all accounts."
Cora sulked, but had to submit.
Several days later, as Nan and Bess were studying in their room, Bess wrote the final word in a French translation with a sigh of relief.
"Didn't you say once, Nan," she queried, "that you had somewhere a book of model French conversations?"
"Yes," answered Nan, looking up from her work. "Do you want it?"
"I'd like it ever so much," Bess answered. "I think it would help me with these wretched idioms that puzzle me so. Could you get it for me?"
"Surely, Bess," assented Nan, with obliging readiness. "It's down in my trunk. I'll go right down to the basement to-morrow after we finish our English recitation at twelve o'clock and get it for you."
"That's a darling, Nan," returned Bess gratefully. "I know it will help me heaps."
During this conversation their door had been standing open, and Linda Riggs, who was passing (she made occasion often to pass Nan's door), heard every word. An exultant look came into her face, and she hurried off to find Cora. She told her eagerlythat at last she knew just how and when she was going to get even with that much-hated Nan Sherwood.
"What are you going to do?" asked Cora, excited and yet a little fearful of any scheme that Linda might hatch.
"I'm going to give her the scare of her life," replied Linda. "The idea came to me the other day when I was in the trunk room in the basement. The steam started to blow off with such a whistle close to my ears that it made me almost jump out of my skin. I feel sure that if the steam can only be held down for a little while and then go off with a rush it will be ten times louder. If that could be made to happen just as Sherwood was going past, it would scare her out of a year's growth. She'd think her last hour had come. The trouble has been that I never knew just when she'd be there. But I know now. I just heard her say. She's in for the biggest fright of her life. How does it strike you?"
"It sounds all right," answered Cora slowly. "But how are you going to do it?"
"Easily," said Linda, with a confident ring in her voice. "After the janitor has fixed up the fires for the day to-morrow morning he'll not be in the basement. I'll slip down before Sherwood is due to get there and tie down the valve. That'll keep the steam confined and make the shriek that much louder when it's let loose. I'll hide behind the woodpile, and justwhen Sherwood is opposite the furnace, I'll cut the string and—voila."
"All very fine," remarked Cora half-heartedly. "But isn't it awfully dangerous? Have you thought what might happen if you confine the steam?"
"Of course I've thought of that, stupid," replied Linda, nettled at Cora's lack of enthusiasm. "But the steam won't be held back long enough to do any harm."
"I'm not so sure of that," said Cora, who felt very uneasy about the possible results of her friend's malicious scheme.
"Nonsense," retorted Linda. "I'll take all the risk, if there is any. But there won't be. I've planned it out too carefully to make any mistake about it. It's too good a chance to get even with Nan Sherwood to let it go by."