cy.

"How's that?" demanded Mr. Gordon.

"They won't want to associate with me--much. Their mothers won't let
them invite me home. For I am a nobody. I heard one lady tell Miss
Prentice once that one never knew what might happen if one allowed one's
girls to associate with girls who had no family. Of course not. I
couldn't blame 'em."

"Ha!" ejaculated Mr. Gordon again.

"You see, my people might have been dreadful criminals--or something,"
went on Nancy. "It might all come out some day,--and then nice people
wouldn't want their girls to have been associated with me."

"Ha!" repeated the lawyer.

"You see how it is; don't you?" explained Nancy, softly. "Miss Prentice
would not let the girls write home about me. And when they learned last
June that I was going to Pinewood they all thought my folks must really
be rich. So _that_ was all right.

"But I thought if I could see you, you would tell me all there was to
know about myself--and my people; and that maybe I could talk about my
guardian and make it all right with those new girls."

"I've told you all I know," said Mr. Gordon, almost sullenly, it seemed.

"Well, then, I--I guess I'll be going," said Nancy, faintly, and turning
from the desk. "I--I'm sorry I bothered you, sir."

"Where are you going?" demanded the lawyer.

"Why--why, to Clintondale, sir."

"Ha! I'll make sure that you get on the right train, at any rate," he
said, and pressed a button under the edge of his desk. "Have you had
your luncheon?"

"No, sir. Not yet."

He plucked a ten-dollar note out of his vest pocket and thrust it into
her hand. "Get your luncheon." The door opened and the red-headed boy
looked in. "Pay for 'Scorch's' luncheon, too."

"Ye-es, sir," said Nancy, faintly.

"Scorch!" commanded Mr. Gordon.

"Yessir!" snapped the office boy.

"It's about your lunch hour?"

"Yessir!"

"Take--take Miss Nancy Nelson to Arrandale's. Afterward take her to the
station and put her aboard the right train for Clintondale. Understand?"

"Yessir!"

Mr. Gordon wheeled back to his desk. He did not even say good-bye to
Nancy as Scorch held the door open for her to pass out.

CHAPTER VI

THE UNRIVALED SCORCH

"Say! ain't Old Gudgeon a good one?" murmured the red-headed boy, as he
followed Nancy to the gate.

She did not answer. That lump had come back into her throat and she was
industriously swallowing it. It seemed to her just then as though it
would never be poss