Part 32 (1/2)

Under this threat Margaret became amenable. She puckered up her lips and stretched her arms out toward Indian Pete. The man stumbled back and fell on his knees beside the two girls. Nan heard the hoa.r.s.e sob in his throat as he took little Margaret in his arms.

”Bless you! Bless you!” he murmured, receiving the kiss right upon his scarred cheek. But Nan saw that Margaret's eyes were tightly closed as she delivered the caress, per order!

The next moment the man with the scarred face had slipped away and disappeared in the forest. They saw him no more.

However, just as soon as the catalog house could send it, Margaret received a beautiful, pink-cheeked, and flaxen-haired Doll, not as fine as Beulah, but beautiful enough to delight any reasonable child.

Nan had won back Margaret's confidence and affection.

Meanwhile the hot summer was fast pa.s.sing. Nan heard from her chum, Bess Harley, with commendable regularity; and no time did Bess write without many references to Lakeview Hall.

Nan, advised by her former teacher in Tillbury, had brought her books to Pine Camp, and had studied faithfully along the lines of the high school work. She was sure she could pa.s.s quite as good an entrance examination for Lakeview Hall as Bess could.

And at last good news came from Scotland:

”I am not quite ready to bring Momsey home,” Papa Sherwood wrote. ”But the matter of her fortune is at least partially settled. The claims of the other relatives have been disallowed. Mr. Andrew Blake is prepared to turn over to your Momsey a part of her wonderful fortune. The rest will come later. She will tell you all about it herself.

”What I wish to say to you particularly in this letter,” pursued Mr.

Sherwood, ”is, that arrangements have been made for you to attend Lakeview Hall this coming semester. You will meet your friend, Elizabeth Harley, in Chicago, and will go with her to the school. I am writing by this mail to the princ.i.p.al of the Hall. Mr. Harley has made all other necessary arrangements for you.”

”Oh!” cried Nan, clasping her hands. ”It's too good to be true! It can't be possible! I just know I'll wake up in a minute and find all this an exciting dream, and that's all!”

But Nan was wrong on that point, as the reader will see if her further adventures are followed in the next volume of the series, ent.i.tled, ”Nan Sherwood at Lakeview Hall, or, The Mystery of the Haunted Boathouse.”

While Nan was still intensely excited over this letter from Scotland, Toby Vanderwiller drove up to the Sherwood house behind his broken-kneed pony. This was the first time any of the Sherwoods had seen him since the day of the big storm and the fire in the sawdust.

Chapter x.x.x. OFF FOR LAKEVIEW HALL

Nan ran out immediately to speak to the old lumberman; but Toby was calling for Uncle Henry:

”Hey, Hen! Hen Sherwood! Come out yere,” he cried.

Uncle Henry halloaed from the stables, and came striding at the call.

Nan reached the old rattletrap wagon first.

”Oh, Mr. Vanderwiller!” she said. ”I am glad to see you! And how is your wife and Corson?”

He looked down at her reflectively, and for a moment did not say a word.

Then he swallowed something and said, jerkily:

”An' you're the one that done it all, Sissy! The ol' woman an' the boy air as chipper as bluejays. An' they air a honin' for a sight on you.”

”Yes. I haven't been over lately. But that man from Chicago came, didn't he?”

”I sh'd say 'yes'! He come,” said Toby, in awe. ”An' what d'ye s'pose?

He done buyed a heap of Corson's spec'mens an' paid him more'n a hundred dollars for 'em. And that ain't countin' that there dead-head b.u.t.terfly ye made sech a time about.