Part 22 (1/2)

”But how about Linda?” suggested another girl, slily. ”She is some historian, too, isn't she?”

Now, Nan had said nothing in her veracious tale about the purse-proud girl; but Mabel Schiff said:

”I don't believe all that. I guess Linda was there as much as these fres.h.i.+es----”

”Yes, she was!” exclaimed Bess, excitedly. ”And all she did was to be ill, over the rail of the boat, and scold Walter for making any effort to save us. That's the sort of a girl Linda is.”

”That sounds a good deal like her,” announced the red-haired girl, bluntly. ”Linda Riggs can't pull the wool over our eyes--much! We've all seen enough of her to know pretty much what she would do at such a time.”

”You're all jealous of her,” sniffed Mabel.

”Sure!” laughed Laura. ”We're jealous of her kind disposition, her honey-dripping tongue, and her delightfully social ways.”

”And her money!” flashed Mabel.

”I think,” said May Winslow, a peace-loving and, withal, ladylike girl--”I think we have discussed an absent fellow-pupil quite enough.

Let us say nothing about Linda that we would not say to her.”

”Oh, goodness!” cried the impulsive Bess. ”I'd say just what I think of her, to her face.”

”That would not make it the less ill-natured,” said May, quietly.

CHAPTER XVII

A LARK IN PROSPECT

Dr. Beulah Prescott herself heard of the chums' adventure and called Nan and Bess into her office before bedtime.

”What is all this I hear about your trying to cross Lake Huron in an open boat?” asked the princ.i.p.al, lightly.

But she looked grave enough before Nan had finished her true and particular narrative of the incident. Dr. Prescott did not scold the chums, as Mrs. Cupp certainly would have done. But she went much more thoroughly into the affair than the matron could, or would.

She sent for Henry, the boatkeeper, and that rather careless individual learned that he was expected to have a closer oversight over the use of the boats by the girls at all times; and especially was he to watch the weather signals which were flown from the pole at the life-saving station on Lighthouse Point.

Nan said nothing to the princ.i.p.al of the school about the person she and Bess had seen prowling about the boathouse. She thought that for once probably Henry had enough trouble!

When Grace Mason got back to the Hall at nine o'clock, she was also called in to see ”Dr. Beulah,” as most of the girls affectionately called the preceptress. But Linda was not called upon to give her version of the adventure at all.

Later the preceptress wrote a very nice letter to Walter Mason's father, commending his son for the bravery and good sense he had shown in saving the girl canoeists. Nan, and Bess, and even Grace, were made a good deal of by the other girls because of the adventure. And every time Walter Mason came to see his sister, Grace asked permission for Nan and Bess to meet him, too. In this way the chums from Tillbury got many an automobile ride and boat ride that they would not otherwise have enjoyed.

Because of this new a.s.sociation of Nan and Bess with Grace and her brother, Linda Riggs' tongue dripped venom, not honey. The rich girl had gathered around her a coterie of girls like Cora Courtney and Mabel Schiff, and they echoed Linda's ill-natured remarks and ridiculous stories. The great number of the older girls at Lakeview Hall, as Nan had very sensibly said, paid no attention whatsoever to the ill-natured talk of Linda Riggs' clique. As for those girls smaller and younger than Nan and Bess (and there were many of them) they were little interested in the controversy.

Of course, right at the beginning of her school life at Lakeview Hall, Nan Sherwood had made friends with the little girls. They all soon learned that Nan was sympathetic, could enter into their play with perfect equality, was glad to help them in their lessons, and altogether filled the part of ”Big Sister” to perfection.

Bess did not care so much for children. Perhaps it was because she had some bothersome small brothers and sisters at home. Nan, who was an only child, had always longed for a brother or sister. Although she could not remember him, the tiny brother who had lived a short few weeks at the ”little dwelling in amity,” and then had gone away forever, was much in Nan Sherwood's thoughts.

”It gets me,” Bess sputtered once to her chum, ”how you can actually play dolls with those primary kids--a big girl like you.”