t the girl, who felt herself ostracized,
feared a rebuff. As Madame Schakael had said to Corinne, Nancy was one
of the sensitive ones. And the sensitive girl at boarding school is
bound to have a hard time unless she very quickly makes a lasting
friendship, or becomes a popular member of some group of her
schoolfellows right at the start.

When she felt very lonely in Number 30, or when Cora's friends made it
impossible for her to study, Nancy sought comfort--such as it was--in
the gym., or in taking long walks by the river.

The Pinewood estate was a large one and she did not have to go out of
bounds to get plenty of walking exercise. Furthermore, as soon as the
frost came, all the athletic girls were anxious about the ice.

Clinton River was a quiet, if broad, stream and before the last of
October the edges and the quiet pools inshore were skimmed over. Nancy,
who loved skating, and had bought a beautiful pair of skates the year
before with her own pocket-money, watched the forming ice almost daily.

"Great times on the river when it once freezes over," she heard one girl
say. "And I bet the boys at the Academy are watching just as closely as
we are."

Clinton Academy, Nancy had learned, was only a mile away. She had even
seen its towers, from a distance. And some of Dr. Dudley's boys had
passed the lodge one day when Nancy was down there visiting Jessie
Pease.

For the girl had occasionally taken advantage of the invitation the
lodgekeeper's wife had extended to her, and had visited her in the
neat little cottage. Mrs. Pease frequently got some of the younger girls
together in her kitchen on rainy days, and let them pull taffy and pop
corn, and otherwise enjoy themselves.

Yet, once away from the presence of the kind-hearted matron, Nancy found
herself no closer to her schoolmates than before.

November brought dark nights and black frost. Clintondale was well up
toward the Great Lakes and sometimes the winter arrives early in that
part of the country.

It did so this year--the first of Nancy Nelson's sojourn at Pinewood
Hall. One morning Nancy got up while it was still dark, slipping out to
the bathroom as noiselessly as a little gray ghost--her robe was of that
modest color. There she swiftly made her toilet and then as quietly
dressed in Number 30.

She had learned to do all this without rousing Cora, for her roommate
was very unpleasant indeed if she woke up in the morning and found Nancy
stirring ab