Nan Sherwood at Lakeview Hall Part 2

"He is Mr. Henry W. Riggs, and he just about owns this railroad," said the girl, proudly.

"I have heard of him," agreed the man. "And you may tell him from me that if I owned as much stock in this road as he is supposed to, I'd give the public better service for its money," and the pa.s.sengers went away, laughing at the purse-proud and arrogant girl.

Meanwhile Nan Sherwood had thanked the porter for recovering her bag and Professor Krenner for championing her cause. She did not look again at the girl who had so hurt and insulted her. But she was very pale and quiet as she went back to rejoin her chum, Bess Harley, in the other car.

That was the way of Nan Sherwood. When she was hurt she never cried over it openly; nor was it often that she gave vent to a public expression of anger.

For her age, Nan was strangely self-contained and competent. Not that she was other than a real, happy, hearty schoolgirl with a deal more than her share of animal spirits. She was so very much alive that it had been hard for her to keep her body still enough to satisfy her teachers at the Tillbury High School which, until the middle of the previous winter, she had attended with her chum.

Bess' father was well-to-do and Bess had had almost everything she really craved since the hour she was born, being the oldest of the "Harley tribe," as she expressed it. When it was decided that she should, at the end of her freshman year in high school, attend the preparatory school for girls, known as Lakeview Hall, Bess was determined that her chum, Nan Sherwood, should go with her.

But Nan's parents were not situated at all as were Bess Harley's--neither financially or otherwise. Mr. Robert Sherwood had been, for years, foreman of a department in the At.w.a.ter Mills. Suddenly the mills were closed and Nan's father--with mult.i.tudes of other people--found his income cut off.

He owned a little cottage on Amity Street; but it was not all paid for, as Nan's mother had been a semi-invalid for a number of years and much of the money Mr. Sherwood might have saved, had gone for medical attention for "Momsey," as Nan called her mother.

But the invalid wife and mother was the bravest and most cheerful of the three who lived in "the dwelling in amity," as Mr. Sherwood called the little cottage, and it was she who inspired them to hope for better times ahead.

Nan could not fail to be benefited in character by such an example as her mother set; but the girl very well knew that, in their then present circ.u.mstances, there was no possibility of her entering Lakeview Hall in the fall with Bess Harley.

This was really a tragic outlook for the school chums; but in the very darkest hour a letter arrived from a lawyer, named Andrew Blake, of Edinburgh, Scotland, stating that a great uncle of Mrs. Sherwood's had recently died, bequeathing her an estate valued at something like ten thousand pounds.

The only shadow cast upon this delightful prospect was the fact that Mrs. Sherwood must appear before the Scotch Court to oppose the claim of more distant relatives who were trying to break the will.

The doctors had already recommended a sea voyage for Mrs. Sherwood. Now it seemed a necessity. But her parents could not take Nan across the ocean. What should be done with the troubled girl was the much mooted question, when there burst in upon the family Mr. Sherwood's brother from Upper Michigan, a giant lumberman, who had come to Tillbury to offer any help in his power to Nan's father in his financial straits.

Immediately upon hearing of the legacy, Mr. Henry Sherwood declared he would take Nan back to Pine Camp with him, and in the first volume of this series, ent.i.tled "Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp, or, The Old Lumberman's Secret," are told all Nan's adventures in the Big Woods during the spring and summer, and until the time came for her to prepare to enter Lakeview Hall in September.

For, although the court proceedings regarding Mr. Hughie Blake's will had not been entirely settled, money had been advanced by Mr. Andrew Blake to Mr. Sherwood and the desire of Nan's heart was to be accomplished. She was now on her way to Lakeview Hall with Bess Harley; and, as we have seen, she had not gone far on the journey from Chicago before Adventure overtook her.

This first was not a pleasant adventure, however; and it brought in its train incidents which colored all Nan Sherwood's initial semester at Lakeview Hall.

CHAPTER III

LINDA RIGGS

When Bess Harley heard about the over-dressed girl's accusation, and how Nan had been treated, she wanted to jump right up and "give the stuck-up thing a piece of my mind!" as she expressed it. Bess was very angry indeed, and quite overlooked the fact, of course, that her own carelessness had brought the trouble about.

"I'd have slapped her," declared the vigorous Bess. "Calling you a thief! Why! I couldn't have kept my hands off of her. Who is she?"

"I--I did not pay much attention to what she said about herself," Nan replied. "Only her name. That's Riggs."

"And that's homely enough," scoffed Bess.

"She is not homely," Nan confessed. "That is, I think she may be quite pretty when she isn't angry. And she had on a dress that would have made you gasp, Bess."

"Was it so pretty?"

"No; but it was of very rich material, and daringly cut," said her friend.

"Where is she now?" demanded Bess, standing up to look over the day coach in which they now rode, for the chair-car with the broken rod had been left behind and the train was hurrying on to the junction.

"I think she went into the dining car, forward," said Nan.

"Humph! I wish we had. We could see out better."

"But we have a nice lunch, you know," Nan objected.

"Just the same, it's _common_ to eat lunch out of a shoe-box on a train.

I don't know what mother was thinking of. And we could have seen that girl with the fancy dress in the dining car."

"Pshaw!" laughed Nan. "You're always crazy after the styles. I don't wish to see her again, I a.s.sure you."

"I never saw such a girl as you," complained her chum. "You're as bold as a lion about some things and as meek as a mouse about others."

Nan's ready laugh was her only reply to this. She had begun to feel better. The sting of her encounter with the unkind and vulgar girl was soothed. She did not mind now the curious glances of those pa.s.sengers from the chair-car who were within the limit of her view.

But Bess considered that one person's interest in her and her chum was distasteful. She whispered to Nan.

"Do you see that old, goggle-eyed gentleman staring at us, Nan? I declare! Are we a pair of freaks?"

"Perhaps he thinks so," chuckled Nan.

"He's awfully impolite."

Nan smiled frankly at the observant pa.s.senger across the aisle.

"Why, Nancy!" gasped Bess.

"He was kind to me. Professor Krenner is his name. I heard that girl call him so."

"Then they know each other?" said Bess.

"I presume so. But that did not keep him from believing _me_," Nan said.

"He was nice."

"Well," whispered Bess. "He doesn't look nice." She began to giggle.

"Did you ever see such gla.s.ses? He looks like an owl."

"I suppose he is a learned man," Nan returned, "so the look of wisdom becomes him."

"Humph!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Bess. "That does not follow. What sort of professor did you say he is?"

"I didn't say. I only heard his name."