A Little Miss Nobody; Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall

by Amy Bell Marlowe

Indeed, Cora had so much company—girls who usually ignored Nancy altogether—that the orphan was glad to get out when they appeared. And her refuge was the gym. There she became acquainted with the more athletic girls of the school.

They found—even the sophs and juniors—that Nancy could play tennis and other games. She swam like a fish, too, and was eager to learn to row. The captain of the crew, the coach of the basketball team, and others of the older girls, began to pay some attention to Nancy.

But with her own class she had not become popular. Nancy really had little more than a speaking acquaintance with any other freshman.

Not being included in the group of girls who so often came to see Cora Rathmore in Number 30, Nancy was debarred from other groups, too. Nobody came to see her in the room, and she was invited nowhere—perhaps because the other girls thought she must be “in” with the clique to which Cora belonged.

At the head of this party of freshmen was the very proud girl named Grace Montgomery, whom Cora indefatigably aped. Girls who were proud of their parents’ money, or who catered to such girls because they were so much better off than their mates, for the most part made up this clique.

There was not more than a score of them; but they clung together and were an influence in the class, although altogether there were nearly a hundred freshmen.

As the days went by the lessons became harder and the teachers more strict. Nancy found that it was very hard to be put out of her own room in study time because of the chattering of other girls, many of whom, it seemed, did not care how they stood in their classes.

“Really, I cannot hear myself think!” Nancy gasped one day when she had sat with her elbows on her desk, her hands clasped over her ears, trying to give all her attention to the text-book before her.

For half an hour there had been noise enough in Number 30 to drive a deaf and dumb person distracted.

“Well, if you don’t like it, you can get out!” snapped Cora, when Nancy complained. “You’re not wanted here, anyway.”