“Who—all?”
“Corinne and Cora and Nancy.”
“They’ve caught Nancy because she was going to run away?” cried Jennie.
“Run away?” repeated the other girls in chorus.
The angry Jennie shook the bag in their faces.
“Do you know what this is?” she demanded. “Do you know what you girls by your meanness almost drove Nancy Nelson to?
“I’ll tell you! She knows you all dislike her—hate her, in fact. She is so unhappy here that she was going to run away from Pinewood Hall and get work somewhere—that is what she was going to do.
“She packed this bag and tossed it out of the window, and then she ran down to the door intending to slip away. But she remembered that she had been forbidden to leave the building at this time of day, and that Madame Schakael had trusted her.
“So Nance wouldn’t break her word, and I found her crying in the back hall there, and told her I would bring back her bag. That’s the truth! You girls have driven her to all that.
“And now,” continued the wrathful Jennie, “I’m going in there to tell Madame Schakael all about it. You girls don’t want to associate with Nancy because she is an orphan and has no home? Well, I don’t want to associate with you because you are all too mean to bother with! There now!”