“Thank you!” gasped the younger girl, having hard work now to keep from crying. The kind word moved her more than the neglect of the other girls.
Corinne led the way to one of the doors and opened it composedly. Through a richly furnished anteroom she preceded the new girl and knocked lightly upon another doer.
“Enter!” responded a pleasant voice.
Corinne turned the knob, looked in, said “Good-evening!” brightly, and then stood aside for Nancy to pass her.
“Another newcomer, Madame—Nancy Nelson.”
“Come in, too, Corinne,” said the pleasant voice.
Nancy passed through and saw the owner of the voice. She was a little lady—a veritable doll-like person. She sat on a high chair at a desk-table, with her tiny feet upon a hassock, for they could not reach the floor.
“Come hither, Nancy Nelson. You are the girl of whom my good friend, Miss Prentice, of the Higbee School, wrote me? I am glad to see you, child,” declared Madame Schakael.
Her hair was a silvery gray, but there was a lot of it, and her complexion was as rosy as Nancy’s own. She must have passed the half-century mark some time before, but the principal of Pinewood Hall betrayed few marks of the years in her face.
She had shrewd gray eyes, however, and rather heavy brows. Nancy thought at once that no girl would undertake to take advantage of Madame Schakael, despite her diminutive size. Those eyes could see right through shams, and her lips were firm.