“But there is much that I want to ask you,” the girl said, “and if I possibly can, I will return after dark.”
“Come, come, dearie leicheen,” the gypsy women urged, “We will be glad to have you.”
Then, as it was late, Nan hurried away. The twilight was deepening and though she passed close to their hiding place, she did not see the two girls who had been spying upon her.
When she was gone, Muriel exclaimed, “Daisy Wells, did you hear her? She spoke the gypsy language.”
“Yes,” her friend replied. “I have always thought that there was something strange about Nan Barrington and now I know what it is. She is a gypsy.”
“If that is true, one of us will leave this school,” Muriel said haughtily, “for my mother would not permit me to associate with a common gypsy.”
CHAPTER XIX.
AN ENEMY.
During the dinner hour Phyllis glanced often at her dearest friend wondering, almost troubled, at the change that had so recently come over her. Across the wide refectory, two other pairs of eyes were also watching Nan and in the proud face of Muriel Metcalf there was a sneering expression.
“How guilty Nan Barrington acts,” she said softly to the girl at her side.
“She dreads having the truth found out, I suppose,” Daisy Wells replied, “but probably we are the only ones who know it and of course we would not tell.”