CHAPTER III

LINDA RIGGS

When Bess Harley heard about the over-dressed girl's accusation, and how Nan had been treated, she wanted to jump right up and "give the stuck-up thing a piece of my mind!" as she expressed it. Bess was very angry indeed, and quite overlooked the fact, of course, that her own carelessness had brought the trouble about.

"I'd have slapped her," declared the vigorous Bess. "Calling you a thief! Why! I couldn't have kept my hands off of her. Who is she?"

"I--I did not pay much attention to what she said about herself," Nan replied. "Only her name. That's Riggs."

"And that's homely enough," scoffed Bess.

"She is not homely," Nan confessed. "That is, I think she may be quite pretty when she isn't angry. And she had on a dress that would have made you gasp, Bess."

"Was it so pretty?"

"No; but it was of very rich material, and daringly cut," said her friend.

"Where is she now?" demanded Bess, standing up to look over the day coach in which they now rode, for the chair-car with the broken rod had been left behind and the train was hurrying on to the junction.

"I think she went into the dining car, forward," said Nan.

"Humph! I wish we had. We could see out better."

"But we have a nice lunch, you know," Nan objected.

"Just the same, it's _common_ to eat lunch out of a shoe-box on a train. I don't know what mother was thinking of. And we could have seen that girl with the fancy dress in the dining car."

"Pshaw!" laughed Nan. "You're always crazy after the styles. I don't wish to see her again, I assure you."

"I never saw such a girl as you," complained her chum. "You're as bold as a lion about some things and as meek as a mouse about others."

Nan's ready laugh was her only reply to this. She had begun to feel better. The sting of her encounter with the unkind and vulgar girl was soothed. She did not mind now the curious glances of those passengers from the chair-car who were within the limit of her view.

But Bess considered that one person's interest in her and her chum was distasteful. She whispered to Nan.

"Do you see that old, goggle-eyed gentleman staring at us, Nan? I declare! Are we a pair of freaks?"

"Perhaps he thinks so," chuckled Nan.

"He's awfully impolite."

Nan smiled frankly at the observant passenger across the aisle.

"Why, Nancy!" gasped Bess.

"He was kind to me. Professor Krenner is his name. I heard that girl call him so."

"Then they know each other?" said Bess.

"I presume so. But that did not keep him from believing _me_," Nan said. "He was nice."

"Well," whispered Bess. "He doesn't look nice." She began to giggle. "Did you ever see such glasses? He looks like an owl."

"I suppose he is a learned man," Nan returned, "so the look of wisdom becomes him."

"Humph!" ejaculated Bess. "That does not follow. What sort of professor did you say he is?"

"I didn't say. I only heard his name."

"What's that?" asked Bess, with growing curiosity.

"Professor Krenner," repeated Nan.

"Why--ee!" squealed Bess, suddenly.

She opened her hand-bag, which was quite commodious, and began frantically to dig into its contents. A dollar bill, two lozenges, a handkerchief, part of a paper of chewing gum, an elastic band, a receipt for "freckle balm," a carved horsechestnut that her brother Billy had given her for a keepsake at parting, two bits of silk she had tried to match and could not, a tiny piece of sealing-wax, a much-creased letter (the last Nan had written her from Pine Camp), a funny little carved piece of ivory with a toothpick inside, a silver thimble (for Bess was sometimes domestic), a pair of cuticle scissors in a case, a visiting card, a strip of torn lace (likewise saved to "match"), a big, pearl button off her coat, a safety pin, and a molasses "kiss," fortunately wrapped in waxed paper, _fell to the floor_.

Nan patiently picked up the scattered possessions of her chum. There were other things in the bag, as Bess, with a squeal of satisfaction, proved by producing the folded announcement of Lakeview Hall.

"Goodness gracious, Bess!" sighed her friend. "How will you ever get all these things back into that bag?"

"Oh, tumble 'em in," said the careless Bess. "There must be room for them, or they would never have got in there in the first place. But listen here! I thought I remembered the name. Your Professor Krenner is on the staff of the school."

"What!"

"Yes. He teaches higher mathematics and architectural drawing. 'Architectural drawing'! What girl wants to take that? Of course, the mathematics is compulsory, but the drawing is elective. Dear me! he's a sour looking apple."

"Not when you get close to him," Nan said quickly. "He has kind eyes."

"Humph!" Bess said again.

The man occupying the seat directly ahead of the two girls left at the very next station. Immediately Professor Krenner, who seemed to be much interested in Nan and Bess, crossed the aisle with his bag and sat down in the empty seat.

"Well, Miss," he said to Nan, his eyelids wrinkling at the corners as though a smile lurked behind the shell-bowed spectacles, "I see you have not allowed that little contretemps to blast all the pleasure of your journey. Are you and your friend going to school?"

"Yes, sir. This is my chum, Elizabeth Harley, Professor Krenner," Nan said.

"We are going to Lakeview Hall," Bess put in.

"Indeed?"

Bess showed him the printed circular sent out by Dr. Beulah Prescott. "We know all about you, sir," she said boldly.

"Do you?" he returned, with a rather grim smile about his wide mouth. "Then you know much more than I know myself, and I hope some day when we are better acquainted that you will explain to me, my dear, this complex personality that is known as Alpheus Krenner."

Bess flushed a little; but Nan chuckled. She liked this odd, ugly man, with his querulous voice and dry way of speaking. The twinkling eyes took the rough edge off much that he said.

"So you are two of the new girls I shall meet in my mathematics classes this year," he proceeded. "Do you both know your multiplication tables?"

"Yes, sir," said Nan demurely, while Bess looked rather indignant. "And we have been a little farther, too, in arithmetic. But how about the drawing, sir? Don't you expect to meet us in those classes?"

"No," replied Professor Krenner, soberly. "No girl cares for such instruction."

"No?" cried Bess, becoming interested.

"I have never had a single pupil in architectural drawing at Lakeview Hall," admitted the gentleman.

"Then why do they have it in the list of elective studies?" asked Nan, as much puzzled as her chum.

"Why, you see," said the perfectly serious professor, "Dr. Prescott insists upon each instructor having two courses--one study that is compulsory, and another that is elective. I am not a versatile man. I might have suggested instruction on the key-bugle, which I play to the annoyance of my neighbors; but there is already a musical instructor at the Hall.

"I might have suggested a class in the ancient and honorable calling of cobbling (which is the handmaid of Philosophy, I believe, for I have found most cobblers to be philosophers) as I often repair my own shoes," pursued Professor Krenner, with the utmost gravity. "But there is a lady at the Hall who will teach you to do very ladylike tricks in burnt leather, and the two arts might conflict.

"So, being naturally of a slothful disposition, and being quite sure that no young girl would care for architecture, which is my hobby, I suggested my elective study. I think that Dr. Prescott considers it a joke."

Bess gazed at him with a puzzled expression of countenance. She did not exactly understand. But Nan appreciated his dry humor, and her own eyes danced.

"I believe I should like to take architectural drawing," she said demurely.

"Oh, Nan!" gasped Bess.

The professor's eyes twinkled behind the great, round spectacles. "I shall have to guard against that," he said. "No young lady at the Hall has ever yet expressed such a desire--not even your friend, Miss Riggs."

"Oh! you don't mean to say that that horrid girl who treated Nan so, goes to Lakeview Hall?" Bess cried out.

"She doesn't, really, does she, sir?" asked Nan, anxiously.

"Linda Riggs? Oh, yes. Didn't you know that?"

"Oh, dear, me," sighed Nan.

"Well!" cried Bess. "Who is she?"

"It is no breach of confidence on my part," replied the dry professor, "for she explains the fact to everybody, if I tell you that she is the daughter of Mr. Henry W. Riggs, the railroad magnate."

"Then she must be very rich," almost whispered Bess.

"Her father is," Professor Krenner said briefly.

Bess was deeply impressed, it was evident. But Nan already dreaded the shadow of Linda Riggs' presence in her school life.