We were poor, but hopeful. Two students on scholarships without parental support, dreaming of bright futures. We had not known wealth as children, and our poverty did not oppress us. We married our fortunes together, a transaction that meant a shared bank account in the very low three figures. Still, it was exhilarating to stand so nakedly on our own. 
 
David, ever the optimist, had a habit of humming while "doing the numbers," as he called it, turning our spartan weekly budget into a jaunty ritual of survival. Back then, ATMs were a novelty, and our campus sported a cheerful red and white money machine aptly named Jeanie. Jeanie's smiling face—reminiscent of portraits on U.S. currency, but with long lashes, pert nose, and bright red lips—smiled down on us as she doled out a single twenty-dollar bill. We called her the Jeanie-machiny, and those twenty dollars had to cover our food for the week.  
 
Our cheap apartment was perfect in every way except that we had to pay for the heating. So we turned it off and lived all winter on the warmth of our growing love.   
 
In early April, however, a bill came from the Cincinnati Gas & Electric Company for $47.54. We stared at the bill, agog. But we used no heat! Apparently, everyone had to pay a minimum, and the minimum that year was $47.54 —an enormous sum for us.  David groaned and pointed to the sum on the bill. "The price of frugality," he said, then added, a little sadly, "and we were so cold."  A few days later, I mentioned our plight to a student in my Latin seminar. He suggested that I sell some blood plasma to raise the funds.   
 
The following week, Professor Trahman, who led the Latin seminar, announced that the Classics Department was resurrecting an old tradition, The Horace Prize, which would be awarded to the student who wrote the best essay on Horace at the end of the semester.  The voluntary examination would take place two weeks from that day.  He urged us to sit for it since we had been reading the great poets of the Augustan Age in that very class. He expected us to do our best.  
 
I did my best. And a few days before the heating bill came due, Mr. Trahman approached me in the library like a deus ex machina to inform me that I had won The Horace Prize. He handed me an envelope. 
 
I removed the check at the perforation, cashed it, and paid the heating bill. To this day, lying in a box of special mementos is a descriptive stub that reads "For winning the Horace Prize, $50.00."  Horace, let us remember, is famous not only for his "Carpe diem" quip. He also knew a thing or two about the importance of heating:  p 
 
Dissolve frigus ligna super foco 
Large reponens atque benignius  
 
["Banish the cold. Pile up logs on the hearth in warm welcome"]