, pushed aside the
brakeman, and reached her.

"Say! you can't do that," he gasped, his face as red as his hair.

"Do what?" demanded the girl.

"You can't tip _me_. Say! I ain't the waiter--nor the janitor of the
flat. I'm the hero--and the heroine never tips the hero--nix on that!"

The next moment he had thrust the dollar-bill into her hand, jumped down
to the platform, and scuttled through the crowd, leaving Nancy with the
feeling that she had offended a friend.

CHAPTER VII

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

When the train pulled out of the station Nancy Nelson noticed for the
first time that the sky had become overcast and the clouds threatened
rain. Scorch O'Brien, the odd new friend she had made, was so sprightly
a soul that she really had not observed the change in the weather.

"Oh! I'd like to have a brother like him," she thought. "I don't care if
he _is_ slangy--and fresh. I guess he wouldn't be so if--as he
says--everybody didn't try to poke fun at his red hair. And how homely
he is!"

She smiled happily over some of Scorch's sayings and his impish doings;
so they were some miles on the journey before she began to look about
the car.

Her ticket had called for a chair in the parlor-car; and she immediately
discovered that she was not the only girl who seemed to be traveling
alone.

At least there were half a dozen girls not far from her own age who were
chattering together some distance forward of her seat. When the
conductor came along he smiled down upon Nancy and asked, as he punched
her ticket:

"You going to Pinewood, too?"

"Yes, sir."

"Your first term there?"

"Oh, yes, sir."

"Then you don't know these other girls?" and he nodded to the group
further up the car.

"No, sir. Are _they_ going there, too?" asked Nancy, eagerly.

"Yes. I've been carrying a lot of them to Clintondale this week. The
Hall opens day after to-morrow. Anybody to meet you, Miss?"

"I telegraphed on from Cincinnati," said Nancy.

"That's all right, then. One of the 'bus men will be on the lookout for
you."

"But are those all new girls, too?" asked Nancy, earnestly, as the
conductor was about to pass on.

"No. But most of them have been there only one term. That tall girl is
named Montgomery. Her father's a State Senator--guess you've heard of
Senator Montgomery? Go up and speak to them," and the conductor passed
on.

But Nancy did not have the courage to take his advice. She, however,
observed the g