But as to the latter, the girl was determined to learn all there was to know about herself before she arrived at Pinewood.
In two hours the train would be in Cincinnati. She had but half an hour—or less—to wait for the train on the other road to Clintondale. But she had studied the time-table and she knew that, by waiting four hours in Cincinnati, she could get another train to her destination.
She was to telegraph back to Miss Prentice when she arrived at Cincinnati. At the same time she was supposed to telegraph ahead to the principal of Pinewood Hall,—Madame Schakael. This had all been arranged beforehand; Nancy had been thoroughly instructed by Miss Prentice.
But the girl had made up her mind not to send the dispatch on to Pinewood Hall until she was ready to leave Cincinnati. There should be no telegraphing back and forth between the two schoolmistresses if she could help it.
In the interim Nancy proposed to find Mr. Gordon’s office and have the long-wished-for interview with the man whom she called her guardian. All the guardians she had ever read of seemed to have a much deeper interest in their wards than this lawyer had shown in her.
The cab driver checked her trunk and then spoke a word to the conductor of the train that would take the girl to Cincinnati. But Nancy felt quite independent and “grown up.”
She asked the conductor about stopping over at the big city until the later train and he assured her that she would need no stop-over check for that. She spent a good part of the time until she got to Cincinnati inventing speeches which she would make to Mr. Gordon when she reached his office.
She filed the telegram to Miss Prentice as soon as she got off the train; then she checked her handbag at the parcel counter and walked out of the station.
Of course, she had no idea in which direction South Wall Street lay; but she knew a policeman when she saw one, and believed those minions of the law to be fountains of information.
She told the officer exactly what she wanted to do—to go to the lawyer’s office and return to the station in time for the afternoon train to Clintondale.