An elderly little lady slipped forward and stood behind them with a hand on the shoulder of each. Nance did not dare look around, but there was something comforting and reassuring in that fat hand that lay on her shoulder. "One more complaint against either of you," cautioned the judge impressively, "and it will be the house of reform. If your families can't make you behave, the State can. But we don't want to leave it to the family or the State; we want to leave it to you. I believe you can both make good, but you'll have to fight for it." Nance's irregular features broke into a smile. It was a quick, wide smile and very intimate. "Fight?" she repeated, with a quizzical look at the judge. "I thought that was what we was pinched fer." CHAPTER V ON PROBATION For a brief period Nance Molloy walked the paths of righteousness. The fear of being "took up" proved a salutary influence, but permanent converts are seldom made through fear of punishment alone. She was trying by imitation and suggestion to grope her way upward, but the light she climbed by was a borrowed light which swung far above her head and threw strange, misleading shadows across her path. The law that allowed a man to sell her fire-crackers and then punished her for firing them off, that allowed any passer-by to kick her stone off the hop-scotch square and punished her for hurling; the stone after him, was a baffling and difficult thing to understand. At school it was no better. The truant officer said she must go every day, yet when she got there, there was no room for her. She had to sit in the seat with two other little girls who bitterly resented the intrusion. "You oughtn't to be in this grade anyhow!" declared one of them. "A girl ought to be in the primer that turns her letters the wrong way." "Well, my letters spell the words right," said Nance hotly, "an' that's more'n yours do, Pie-Face!" Whereupon the girl stuck out her tongue, and Nance promptly shoved her off the end of the seat, with the result that her presence was requested in the office at the first recess. "If you would learn to make your letters right, the girls would not tease you," said the principal, kindly. "Why do you persist in turning them the wrong way?" Now Nance had learned to write by copying the inscriptions from the reverse side of the cathedral windows, and she still believed the cathedral was right. But she liked the principal and she wanted very much to get a good report, so she gave in. "All right," she said good-naturedly, "I'll do 'em your way. An' ef you ketch me fightin' agin, I hope you'll lick hell outen me!" The principal, while decrying its forcible expression, applauded her good intention, and from that time on took special interest in her.