“Oh, I don’t know!” said Cora, sullenly sitting down. “It’s just too mean! I’ve got to stop here, I suppose.”
“And they’ve taken Belle from me and given me Annie Gibbons,” cried the visitor. “And Annie snores—horridly!”
“It’s a hateful place,” snarled Cora Rathmore.
“I wish my folks hadn’t sent me here,” groaned the other.
“I’d run away—for half a cent,” declared the Rathmore girl.
“Where would you run to?” demanded her friend.
“Anywhere. To the city. I don’t care. Pinewood Hall isn’t going to be any fun at all, if we can’t pair off as we choose.”
“Who’s your chum?” asked the visitor again, eyeing Nancy, who had returned to her own side of the room and had turned her back to them.
“Oh, I don’t know. Some nobody, of course!”
The words cut Nancy to the heart. The very phrase, uttered by chance, was the one she had feared most in coming to Pinewood Hall.