Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch | Page 5

me," sighed Laura Polk, "we've led the dear some
dance."
Mrs. Cupp looked very stern now as she suddenly appeared from her
office at the end of the big hall. She scarcely responded to the greetings
of the girls who had returned--not even to Nan's--but asked in a most
forbidding tone:
"Who is there new? Girls who have for the first time arrived, come into
my office at once. There is time for the usual formalities before

supper."
"Oh, my dear," murmured Bess Harley wickedly, and loud enough for
the girl in brown to hear her, "she is in a dreadful temper. She certainly
will put these poor sawneys through the wringer tonight."
Rhoda Hammond evidently took this "with a grain of salt." She asked,
before going to the office:
"What sort of instrument of torture is the 'wringer,' please?"
"I am speaking in metaphor," explained Bess. "But you wait! She will
wring tears from your eyes before she gets through with you. As the
little girls say, you can see her 'mad is up.'"
"Oh, now, Elizabeth," warned Nan, "don't scare her."
Rhoda walked away without another word. Bess looked after her with
an admiring light in her eyes.
"Oh, Nan! isn't she beautifully dressed?"
"Richly dressed, I agree," said Nan. "But Mrs. Cupp will have
something to say about that."
"I know," giggled the wicked and slangy Bess. "She'll give her an
earful about dressing 'out of order.' She is worse than Linda."
"No. Better," said Nan confidently. "Whoever chose that girl's outfit
showed beautiful taste, even if she is dressed much too richly for the
standard of Lakeview Hall."
Linking arms a little later, when the supper gong sounded, the two
friends from Tillbury sought the pleasant dining-room where the whole
school--"primes" as well as the four upper divisions--ate at long tables,
with an instructor in charge of each division.
But discipline was relaxed to-night, as it was always at such times.
Even Mrs. Cupp, who, all through the meal, marched up and down the

room with a hawk eye on everything and everybody, was less strict
than ordinarily.
The moment Nan Sherwood appeared the little girls hailed her as their
chum and "Big Sister." Nothing would do but she must sit at their table
and share their food for this one meal.
"Oh, dear, Nan!" cried one little miss, "did you bring back Beautiful
Beulah all safe and sound with you? Shall we have her to play with
again this term?"
"Why, bless you, honey!" returned the bigger girl, "I did not even take
the doll away. Mrs. Cupp has charge of it, and if she lets me, we will
take it up into Room Seven, Corridor Four, to-morrow."
"Oh, won't that be nice?" acclaimed the little girls, for Nan's big doll
was an institution at Lakeview Hall among more than the children in
the primary department.
But at the end of the meal Nan was dragged away by the older girls.
They were an excited and hilarious crowd.
"There's something doing!" whispered Bess in Nan's ear. "That new girl
is on our corridor. You know the room that was shut up all last term?"
"Number eight?"
"That is the one. Rhoda has got it. And what do you think?"
"Almost any mischief," replied Nan, with dancing eyes.
"Oh, now, Nan! Well, Laura has told her that the room is haunted. Says
a girl died there two years ago and it's never been used since. And so
now her ghost will be sure to haunt it--"
"I think that is both mean and silly of Laura," interrupted Nan, with
vigor. "She will have some of these little girls, who will be bound to
hear the tale, scared half to death. Is that poor girl going to live in
Number Eight alone?"

"She is until somebody else comes to mate with her," said Bess
carelessly. "Come on, old Poky. We're going to have some fun with
that wild Westerner."
"I'll go along," agreed Nan, smiling again, "if only to make sure that
you crazy ones do not go too far in your hazing."
CHAPTER III
"CURFEW SHALL NOT RING TONIGHT"
In Corridor Four had always been centered most of Lakeview Hall's
"high jinks," to quote Laura Polk. Although Procrastination Boggs, Nan
Sherwood, Bess Harley, and several other dwellers on this corridor
stood well up in their classes, Mrs. Cupp was inclined to locate most
infractions of the school rules in the confines of Corridor Four.
"Our overflowing an-i-mile spirits, young ladies, are our bane," quoted
Laura, talking through her nose. "Dr. Beulah has been away--has not
arrived home yet--and we unfortunate orphans have been driven to bed
with the chickens. I, for one, have revolted."
"You don't look very revolting, Laura," drawled Amelia Boggs, "even
with that red necktie on