Had Nan been, her reception would
have been more cordial, even though appearing at night in so
unconventional a fashion. But the newcomer had been a student with most
of the girls at the high school the winter before and had been expelled
for supposed dishonesty. Her family was impossible, the father, a man of
good birth fallen so low that his own people would have nothing to do
with him, had married an emigrant woman and Nan was one of many
children. The girl had tried working in the village, but no one cared
to trouble with her long. And yet she was just a little more than
fifteen years old and not an unattractive looking girl, although her
face was curiously older than any other girl's in the group about her.
To-night she was wearing a shabby black frock, torn and dusty, and her
coarse short black hair was unpleasantly disheveled.
"I couldn't leave home until late and then I lost my way," she replied
finally, answering Polly's question in a sullen fashion because of the
weight of disapproval.
"What right had you to say she could come, Polly O'Neill, when you
understand that we like to keep our Council Fires to ourselves?" flashed
Betty, and then stopped, knowing that it was plainly not her place to
speak first.
"You should have returned home when you found you had mistaken the way,"
Miss McMurtry frowned.
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