out the room. No matter if the rising bell had rung, Cora
always accused Nancy, on these occasions, of deliberately spoiling her
morning nap. Cora _was_ a sleepy-head in the morning, and always
appeared to "get out of bed on the wrong side."

However, Nancy left Number 30 without disturbing her roommate on this
morning and, well wrapped up against the biting cold, slipped downstairs
and out of one of the rear doors. The front door of Pinewood Hall had
not been unchained at that hour.

She was the first girl out and it was an hour yet to breakfast time. She
ran straight through the pine woods at the back, passing the gymnasium
and frozen courts, and so down to the river.

A pale moon still hung low on the horizon. The river seemed as black as
ink and not a ripple appeared upon its surface.

"Oh, dear! it's not frozen at all," was Nancy's, first thought.

And then she saw the sheen of the moonlight across the black surface.

"That never is water in the world!" she gasped, and half running, half
sliding, descended the steep bank to the verge of the river.

The wide expanse of the stream proved to be sheathed entirely in black,
new ice.

Nancy uttered a cry of delight and touched it with one strongly-shod
foot, and then the other. It rang under her heel--there was not a single
crack of protest. It bore her weight as firmly as a rock.

Breathlessly Nancy tried it farther out. The keen frost of a single
night had chained the river firmly. She slid a little way. Then she ran
for momentum, and slid smoothly, well balanced from her hips, with her
feet wide spread. Her red lips opened with a sigh of delight. Her eyes
sparkled and the hair was tossed back from under her woolen cap.

"Great! Great!" she cried aloud, when she came to a stop.

She went back down the slide. Her boots rang on the ice as though it
were steel. Again and again she slid until there was a well-defined path
upon the ice--a path at least ten yards long.

But the horizon grew rosy-red and the dropping moon paled into
insignificance. This warned her that the breakfast call would soon sound
and she left the ice reluctantly and ran back to the hall.

Before she reached the kitchens the sun popped up and she ran in the
path made by its glowing rays across the frozen fields.

It was so cold that the early rising girls were hugging the radiators in
the big hall when Nancy came in from the rear, all in a delightful glow.
Some of them nodded to her. One