afraid of Nan. But this girl I mean wrote me all about the Sherwoods."

"Nan is dreadfully close-mouthed," agreed Cora, who was a weak girl and
quite under Linda's influence.

"Well! Those Sherwoods were never anything in Tillbury. How Bess Harley
came to take up with Nan, the goodness only knows. Her father worked in
one of the mills that shut down last New Year. He was out of work a long
time and then came this fortune in Scotland they claim was left Mrs.
Sherwood by an old uncle, or great uncle. I guess it's nothing much to
brag about."

"Bess said once it might be fifty thousand dollars," said Cora, speaking
the sum unctuously. Cora was poor herself and she loved money.

"Oh, maybe!" exclaimed Linda Riggs, tossing her head. "But I guess nobody
knows the rights of it. Maybe it isn't so much. You know that there were
other heirs who turned up when Nan's father and mother got over to
Scotland, and one while Nan thought she would have to leave school
because there wasn't money enough to pay her tuition fees."

"Yes, I know all about that," admitted Cora, hurriedly. She had a vivid
remembrance of the unfinished letter from Nan to her mother, which she
had found and shown to Linda. Cora was not proud of that act. Nan had
never been anything but kind to her and secretly Cora did not believe
this ill-natured history of Nan Sherwood that Linda repeated.

Those of my readers who have read the first volume of this series,
entitled "Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp, Or, The Old Lumberman's Secret,"
will realize just how much truth and how much fiction entered into the