Page:St. Nicholas (serial) (IA stnicholasserial321dodg).pdf/331

1905.] pushed her ahead when she lagged, and finally got her to a half-buried greenhouse on the out-skirts of the town, where the proprietor was up, attending to his fires. From this place Bob was able to telephone his anxious mother; and the greenhouse man found a bed for him over his shop, while Prue was kindly taken care of in the house by the old man’s wife.



Bob’s badly frosted left ear and cheek finally recovered, and Prudence suffered no lasting harm from her strenuous walk; but when she learned by the paper the next evening that the elderly janitor who had charge of the club-house, and who had locked it after them for the night, had been found frozen nearly to death in the snow only a few feet from his own home, she shuddered and thought again of Grouchy. Although she never became as punctual as Cousin Octavia, it was noticed after that that the girl’s clocks were always right, that she actually consulted them, and that, whoever else might be late, it was never Prudence.