“How’s that?” demanded Mr. Gordon.
“They won’t want to associate with me—much. Their mothers won’t let them invite me home. For I am a nobody. I heard one lady tell Miss Prentice once that one never knew what might happen if one allowed one’s girls to associate with girls who had no family. Of course not. I couldn’t blame ’em.”
“Ha!” ejaculated Mr. Gordon again.
“You see, my people might have been dreadful criminals—or something,” went on Nancy. “It might all come out some day,—and then nice people wouldn’t want their girls to have been associated with me.”
“Ha!” repeated the lawyer.
“You see how it is; don’t you?” explained Nancy, softly. “Miss Prentice would not let the girls write home about me. And when they learned last June that I was going to Pinewood they all thought my folks must really be rich. So that was all right.
“But I thought if I could see you, you would tell me all there was to know about myself—and my people; and that maybe I could talk about my guardian and make it all right with those new girls.”
“I’ve told you all I know,” said Mr. Gordon, almost sullenly, it seemed.
“Well, then, I—I guess I’ll be going,” said Nancy, faintly, and turning from the desk. “I—I’m sorry I bothered you, sir.”