room.

"I suppose you think I'm a mean thing," said the black-eyed girl,
glancing at Nancy askance.

"I'll leave it for you to say," returned Nancy. "If I had run to Madame
Schakael with a story about you----"

"How do you know I went to her?" snapped Cora. "She asked me where you
were. You slipped into her office so quick that she thought you were
trying to get out of it, of course. She knew all the time that you were
the girl who had been on the ice."

Now, Nancy did not believe this at all; but she said nothing to show
Cora that she distrusted her first friendly (?) advance.

"Anyway," said the black-eyed one, "she _did_ ask me about you, and if
you were out early, as usual. Oh! you can't fool the Madame."

"I shouldn't want to try," observed Nancy, quietly.

"Well! if you didn't act so offish we girls would like to be friends
with you," said Cora, tucking her arm into Nancy's. "Going skating this
afternoon?"

This was the first time any girl at Pinewood Hall had ever walked in a
"chummy" manner with Nancy. But to tell the truth, Nancy was not sure
whether this overture towards peace on the part of her roommate really
meant anything or not.

There were lots of the girls whom she thought she would like better than
Cora--or her friends. There was the lively Jennie Bruce, for instance.
Nancy often watched her flitting back and forth, from group to group,
being "hail-fellow-well-met" with them all. Jennie made friends without
putting forth any effort, it seemed.

"Oh, I wish I had Jennie for a roommate," thought Nancy Nelson. "I
really would be happy then, I do believe."

But this day seemed not to be a bad one for Nancy, after all. Cora
waited for her, with her skates, after recitations were over, and they
joined a party of Cora's chums on the way to the river.

Grace Montgomery was not among these; Grace never had a word for Nancy,
so the younger girl kept away from the senator's daughter.

But the river was broad, and the ice was like glass, and in the
exhilaration of the sport Nancy forgot snubs and back-biting, and all
the ill-natured slights under which she had suffered since becoming a
dweller in Number 30, West Side, Pinewood Hall.

She noted one thing that afternoon. Few of the girls skated toward the
railroad bridge; but most of them to the school bounds in the other
direction. The reason for skating down the river instead of up Nancy did
not at first understand. Then she heard some of Cora's f