“I’d like to have Jennie Bruce come,” Nancy suggested timidly one day.
“Goodness! why didn’t you say so before?” snapped Cora.
“Why? Won’t there be room for her?”
“We’ve made up the whole list, and the girls have been invited. We couldn’t squeeze in another girl.”
“Why—why, who made up the list?”
“Grace and I. Here it is,” and Cora snapped a paper upon Nancy’s desk.
Nancy read it over without comment. There wasn’t a girl invited to the party at Number 30, West Side, whom Nancy liked any better than she did Cora herself! She began to doubt if the coming entertainment was going to be a success—as far as she was concerned—after all.
The girls ran in to see Cora again. Even Grace appeared in Number 30. But none of them spoke more than perfunctorily to Nancy, and the lonely girl felt herself as much “out of it” as ever.
But she had one enjoyment now that made up for many previous lonely hours at the school. She could skate!
Clinton River remained frozen over; the ice grew thicker and the lodgekeeper and Samuel reported each morning that it was perfectly safe.