graduation here and your matriculation at Pinewood Hall in September——”

“Oh, Miss Prentice! Pinewood Hall!” cried Nancy, unable to restrain herself.

She knew all about Pinewood Hall. It was one of the most popular preparatory schools in the Middle West. Nancy had never even dreamed that she would be allowed to attend such a select institution.

“I do wish you would restrain yourself, Nancy,” said the principal. “They will think at Pinewood that you have had no proper training here, at all.”

“Oh, I beg pardon, Miss Prentice,” cried the girl. “I really will try to be a credit to you if I go there.”

“I hope so,” observed the principal, grimly, and nodded as though she thought this terminated the interview.

“But, Miss Prentice! Is—is that all he says?” queried Nancy, anxiously.

“That you will remain here—if I agree, which I shall; Miss Trigg will look after you—until fall, when you will receive your transportation to Clintondale and will go there, prepared to continue your studies.”

“And—noth—ing—more?” sighed Nancy, hopelessly.

“Indeed! What more could you wish?” demanded Miss Prentice, tartly. “It seems to me you are a very fortunate girl indeed. Pinewood! There isn’t another girl in the class whose parents can afford to send her to such a fashionable preparatory institution.”

“I know, Miss Prentice. I ought to be grateful, I suppose,” admitted the girl, wearily. “But—but I did so hope Mr. Gordon would write something about me—about who I am—about what I am going to be in life——”

“I declare!” snapped the principal. “I call this downright ingratitude, Nancy Nelson. Suppose I wrote what you say to Mr. Gordon? And he should in turn transmit my report to—to the people who furnish the money for all this——”

“That’s just it! that’s just it, Miss Prentice!” wailed the girl, suddenly bursting into tears. “Who furnishes the money? Why do they furnish it? Oh, dear! what have I done that I am treated like a colt to be broken instead of like a girl?”

Miss Prentice was silenced for the moment. She looked down upon the girl’s bowed head, and upon the young shoulders heaving with sobs, and a strange expression flitted for the moment across her grim face.

Perhaps never before had the principal of Higbee School looked into Nancy’s heart and seen the real tragedy of her young life.

That summer was much like other summers in Malden. Nancy had been graduated with some honor; but there was nobody to rejoice with her over her success. The school had been crowded on the last day with friends and parents of the other girls; there was not a soul who more than perfunctorily wished Nancy Nelson “good luck.”

The neighborhood of Higbee School was very quiet a week after the term closed. The serving force was greatly reduced; most of the big house was closed, and all the cottages. Even Miss Prentice, four days after graduation, started for Europe with a party of teachers, and Miss Trigg and Nancy were left practically alone.

But the orphaned girl had something this summer on which to feed her imagination. She was going to Pinewood Hall. And Pinewood Hall was exclusive, and on the very top wave of popularity.

It cost a lot of money to go to that school, Miss Trigg had suggested to Miss Prentice to remind the lawyer that Nancy would need a more elaborate outfit of gowns, and Mr. Gordon had sent the extra money for that purpose without a word of objection.

The thought had taken root in Nancy’s mind at last that she must be somebody of importance. At least, she was an heiress. Whether she owned a single relative, or not, she commanded money. That was something.

Of course, the other girls at Higbee had always looked down upon her and considered her “a charity scholar;” but Nancy believed that at Pinewood Hall she could hold up her head with the best.

Nobody would know her there. She would begin a fresh page of her history. She would make the girls love her for herself; it would not matter there that she had no near relatives. Mr. Henry Gordon, her guardian, must know all about her, and with regard to this gentleman the girl had a very grave determination in her mind—a determination which she did not confide even to Miss Trigg.

Nancy Nelson meant to see and speak with the lawyer before she went to Pinewood Hall.

Whether he wanted to or not, Mr. Gordon must tell her something about herself. If she had relatives living she wanted to know, at least, why they were ashamed of her. Or, if she was merely the ward of an estate, she wanted to know what the estate was—and how big it was.

The girl had thought so much about her equivocal position that her future troubled her. If there was just enough money to give her a college education, she wanted to know it. If she must prepare herself for taking some place at the end of her schooldays in the work-a-day world, she wanted to know that, too.

These were practical thoughts for so young a girl; but Nancy Nelson was practical, despite her imagination.

She had already looked up Clintondale on the map, and upon the railroad time-table. It was half a day’s ride east of Malden, and Cincinnati was one of the points where she changed cars.

Although she had never traveled by train herself, Nancy had heard the other girls exchanging experiences, and she knew that she could get a “stop-over” from the conductor of the train.

She had seen one of Mr. Gordon’s letters which he had written Miss Prentice; the principal had shown it to her.

At that time the girl had memorized the street and number printed at the top of the lawyer’s stiffly-worded communication. She would never forget “No. 714 South Wall Street.”

That was the one secret Nancy Nelson kept hidden within her heart all that long summer while she waited with Miss Trigg, the secretary and general utility teacher, for the return of the principal of Higbee School and the beginning of her new life.

Miss Trigg tried to be nice to her; indeed, she was nice to her after a fashion. But Miss Trigg’s pleasures were between bookcovers; Nancy Nelson was too healthy a girl not to desire something of a more exciting nature than Roman history or higher mathematics on a long, hot summer afternoon.

That was why she stole away from the deeply absorbed Miss Trigg on one such occasion late in August, when they had ridden out to Granville Park to spend an hour or two in the open.

Granville Park bordered a good-sized pond, dammed at its lower end, where was an old mill site. An automobile road crossed the bridge that had been built here; but the mill had not been in commission for years. It was a quiet and picturesque spot.

Just above the millrace was a quiet pool under the bank where great, fragrant water-lilies floated upon the surface. Those lilies always attracted Nancy. She wished she were a boy. Boys could do so many things forbidden to girls!

She longed to strip off her shoes and stockings and wade into the black water to obtain some of the lilies. She had no idea that, just beyond the little patch of marine plants, the bottom of the pond fell away abruptly, and that a current tugged stoutly for the millrace.

On this particular day, when she had left Miss Trigg reading in her favorite summer-house high on the rocky hill, and