friend there about you, too. We all wanted to know who you were."

"I--I am Nancy Nelson," said the girl, timidly.

"Sure! Grace, or somebody, was just speaking of you," said the boy. "You
see, I was motoring through that country on the way to Chicago, in
Senator Montgomery's car. That was a pretty spot at that old mill and
the girls saw the lilies. So I had to wade in for them--like a chump,"
and he laughed.

"It _was_ dangerous, I suppose," confessed Nancy. "But I often longed to
wade in myself for them."

"And you got them anyway!" he cried, bursting into another laugh. "Grace
and the others were sore about it. They had to wait until we got to the
next town before we found any more lilies. Then I got a boat and went
after them."

Nancy had stopped skating, and she and the boy stood side by side,
talking. What the Montgomery girl and her friends would think about this
Nancy did not at the time imagine.

"But it's funny Grace didn't recognize you," said Bob, suddenly.

"No. In the confusion they wouldn't have noticed me very closely," Nancy
replied.

"Well! I don't see how Grace could have missed knowing such a jolly girl
as you."

His boyish, outspoken opinion amused Nancy. Although Bob was at least
three years her senior she soon became self-possessed. Girls are that
way--usually.

"You're a dandy skater," said Bob. "Will you skate with me?"

"Oh, yes; if you want me to," replied Nancy.

She had never skated with a boy before. They crossed hands and started
off on the long roll. Nancy was just as sturdy on her skates as the boy.
It was delightful to cross the ice so easily, yet swiftly, and feel that
one's partner was perfectly secure, too.

And Bob Endress was such a nice boy. Nancy decided that her first good
opinion of him, formed when she had seen him wading in the millpond
after water-lilies, was correct. He was gentlemanly, frank, and as jolly
as could be.

She remembered very well now that she had heard various other girls at
Pinewood Hall talk of Bob Endress. He was some distant connection of the
haughty Grace Montgomery.

And he had left Grace and all those other girls in a minute to renew his
odd acquaintance with Nancy.

The latter could not fail to feel a glow all through her at this
thought. She had all the aspirations of other girls. She wanted to be
liked by people--even by boys. And Bob was evidently a great favorite
with her schoolmates.

Round and round the course they skated