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 about 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.”