"Now for the blouse! I'll put it over your head!"
A silent but breathless struggle followed, from which Peggy emerged panting and crimson, but victorious. "Oh, I do hope she—your chum—won't mind!" she cried. "I am so afraid I shall get them dirty!" for it was a whim of the Snowy Owl's to wear a white gym suit, and it was as fresh as if it were just out of the tub, as indeed it was.
"Oh, that is no matter! She washes them every week; she likes to wash; it's one of her accomplishments. Come along now!"
They ran up-stairs, and found the class just forming in ranks. A gesture bade them fall into line with the rest, and Peggy stood with her toes on a chalk mark, waiting the word of command.
It came. "Left foot forward—fall out!" At the command every girl put out her left foot as far as she could, and flung her whole weight forward on it. Peggy did the same, and fell on her nose with a resounding crash. The class giggled, but were sharply checked by the teacher.
"We will try this once more. Try to balance the body carefully! Take time! Once more! Left foot forward—fall out!"
Again the line dropped forward with one motion; and again our poor Peggy fell on her nose. This time the nose protested in its way, and bled; great crimson drops fell on the white plumage of the Snowy Owl. Almost crying with distress and mortification, Peggy felt for her handkerchief. Alas! she was not used to trousers, and no pocket could she find, though there was one, and her handkerchief was in it. What should she do? She was just about to make a bolt for the stairs, when a handkerchief was thrust into her hand. She clapped it to her suffering nose, and looked gratefully at her left-hand neighbour in the ranks. The girl nodded slightly, and said, "All serene! better ask leave to retire. Hold arms over head, stop it!" She was a slender girl, with a pensive face and melancholy blue eyes. Her hair was plainly parted, Madonna-fashion, and there was something remote and old-world about her whole look and air.
"Oh, thank you!" murmured poor Peggy."You're awfully kind!" She hoped the tiresome bleeding would stop on the instant, but it did not; she was obliged to ask leave to go down-stairs; and receiving it, dashed down headlong, and cannoned violently against Vivia Varnham, who had gone down for something she had forgotten.
"Oh, I beg your pardon!" gasped Peggy. "I'm—awfully clumsy—"
"I think you are!" said the other, with a flash of her hazel eyes. "Perhaps you'll let me pass now, please, before you make another exhibition of yourself." She went on, with a scornful toss of her head.
Poor Peggy! her tears flowed fast over the friendly handkerchief. "I wish I was dead!" she sobbed. "I wish I had never come to this horrid, odious place, where everybody is so hateful. And I can't hold up my arms when I have to hold this to my nose all the time."
"Quite so!" said a quiet voice behind her. The sad-looking girl took her hands and held them straight up in one of her own, the other keeping the handkerchief in position. Noword was spoken, but in five minutes the bleeding was stopped.
"Basin—water!" said the stranger. "Don't mention it!" as Peggy tried to falter her thanks. And she was gone.
Peggy waited till she felt sure of herself and her nose. Then she spoke severely to herself, and asked what Uncle John would say to such behaviour. "Everybodyisn't hateful!" she said. "And anyhow, there are some things there that I can do, if I haven't learned this trick. I won't give up till I've gone up that rope."
Her eye had been caught by a stout rope dangling from the ceiling. This was in her own line, and she felt that if she could redeem herself in her own eyes, she should not care so much about all those other laughing eyes. And yet, perhaps she thought more about those eyes than she was aware of, for our Peggy was very human.
This time fortune favoured her. As she emerged from the lower regions, a girl was just trying to climb the rope; in fact, there were three ropes hanging side by side, andthe climbing of them was part of the regular exercise. She sought Bertha, who was most sympathetic, not having been near enough to help Peggy.
"Climb the rope? Oh, you'd better not try that, Peggy! it takes a lot of practice. Why, I've been here two years, and I can't get to the top yet. Really, it's very hard. Let's come and swing on the ring, if you are quite sure about your poor nose."
But Peggy did not want to swing on the rings, nor to do anything else that Bertha proposed; she wanted to climb that rope, and she meant to do it; the prairie blood was roused.
"Well, I'll ask Miss Brent," said good-natured Bertha, finding her determined. "You say you have had some experience in climbing? Perhaps she'll let you go a little way up."
Miss Brent, interrogated, came and looked Peggy over carefully; felt her muscles, asked her a few questions, and then said, "You may have the next turn, Miss Montfort."
"UP THEY WENT, HAND OVER HAND.""UP THEY WENT, HAND OVER HAND."
The girl on the rope next her was having a sad time of it. She swung this way and that; her legs waved wildly in the air; andat length she came down "all abroad," having only ascended a few feet. At the same moment, the girl on the next rope dropped, so that two were left unoccupied. Peggy advanced and laid her hand upon one rope, just as Vivia Varnham took possession of the other. On the third, the pensive girl with the Madonna braids was swinging easily, half-way up to the ceiling; she twisted her feet around the rope, and, so resting, observed the progress of the other two.
Up they went, hand over hand. Vivia Varnham gave a glance of disdain when she saw who her rival was. She was light and agile, and did not for an instant think that this heavy, clumsy creature could make any headway against her. She went up lightly and easily, but somehow the heavy, clumsy creature managed to keep abreast of her; was even gaining upon her, drawing up, up, above her head. Vivia put on a spurt, and passed Peggy, climbing very swiftly—for a moment; then the ache in her wrists compelled her to slacken her rate of speed, and the thickset figure came up, up, steadily and surely. Truthto tell, though Peggy Montfort was awkward, she was as strong as a steer. Her weight was not fat, but sheer bone and brawn; and her one hundred and forty pounds were easy enough for her to carry, even up a rope thirty feet long. But Vivia Varnham, with all her lightness and quickness, had little strength in her wrists. They ached painfully, but she would not give up. Her face flushed, her breath came in distressful gasps, she struggled on and up. They were more than half-way up; they had passed the quiet observer, swinging comfortably with her feet twisted in her rope. "Better go down, V.!" said the girl with the sad eyes. "She's too many for you!"
Vivia shook her head with an angry gesture. Her eyes swam, the pain in her wrists was unendurable; but she set her teeth, and struggled on, till from below came the voice of Miss Brent, calm and authoritative.
"Come down, Miss Varnham! You have gone far enough."
Most unwillingly, with sullen face and fluttering breath, Vivia slid to the floor. She expected, everybody expected, to hear theorder repeated for the benefit of the newcomer, the audacious freshman who had ventured upon junior ground; for the rope-climbing was not generally attempted till the third year. But Miss Brent kept her eyes on Peggy, and smiled, and made no sign.
Peggy was enjoying herself immensely. She was not a swift climber, but there was no tiring her, and this, as she said to herself, was "great!" She wished Margaret could see her! No! It would frighten dear Margaret. Rita, then! Rita loved feats of skill; probably she could climb far better than she, Peggy, could; Rita was so light, so graceful, so fearless.
A shout rang from below. Something passed her on the next rope, light and swift as a bird in flight. She could almost touch the ceiling now; she looked up; there, at the very top of the next rope, was her friend of the dressing-room, gazing at her with melancholy blue eyes, and holding out a slender hand.
"Shake!" said the girl with the Madonna braids.
Peggy was sitting alone in her room that evening, studying, when there rose a hubbub outside her window; wheels, and the trampling of horses, and girls' voices. She ran to the window and looked out; there was a great hay-rigging, drawn by four stout horses, and comfortably lined with straw. Girls were climbing into it on every side, and more and more came pouring out of the house. It was full moon, and their faces shone so clear and merry in the light, that Peggy could not help feeling a pang, not of envy, but of longing. Of course there had been no question of her going; it was a junior affair; but they all looked so happy and jolly, and it was so lonely here! As she stood longing, Viola Vincent popped her pretty head in to say good-bye.
"Thought you might like to see my toque!" she said, fluttering in the doorway. "It's the first time I have had it on. Isn't it dandy? Isn't it perfectly sweet?"
Peggy thought it charming, and said so; she was rapidly losing her heart to her pretty butterfly neighbour.
"I thought you'd like to see it!" said Viola, naïvely. "It makes it easier to study, if you see something pretty. Ta, dear! I wish you were going. We shall have a dandy time, simply dandy!"
She fluttered out, and left the door ajar behind her, so that Peggy could not help hearing the half-whispered colloquy that ensued in the corridor.
"Went to say good-bye to the Veezy Vee. Why shouldn't I?"
"Why should you? You'll have her around your neck if you don't take care, like a lump, as she is."
"Hush, V.! you're quite vinegar, aren't you? Why? She's perfectly harmless, and I find her quaint. You know I adore quaintness!"
"Oh, come along, and don't talk flummery to me; you know I can't stand it."
The two passed on, and Peggy's ears burned uncomfortably. Evidently Vivia Varnham had taken a violent dislike to her; well, she certainly returned it. And of course that would prevent her from ever seeing much of the other, sweet pretty thing. Well, of course she should have to be alone most of the time. She went to the window again, and saw the two V's climbing in; then there was a great shouting and waving of handkerchiefs, and they drove away. Peggy sighed, and sat down once more to her task. It was rhetoric, and her whole nature cried out against it; but the study was prescribed, and the teacher, Miss Pugsley, was reported to be very strict. Peggy put her elbows on the table, and her head on her hands, and bent in good earnest over the book.
"'Both prepositions and conjunctions are called connectives.'
"Oh, dear! then why can't wecallthem connectives, and have one word to remember, instead of three?
"'When I say the hen barks'—why, that makes nonsense! Oh, I got two lines mixed up. 'When I say the dog barks, I speak of some particular dog.' Well, anybody can see that. Oh, I do wonder if Flora will remember to wash Peter's ear, where he had the canker! It was almost well, but still it will need washing. Dear Peter! dear dogs! they will miss me, I know they will. If one could only have a dog here, it wouldn't be half so bad. I could have a basket for him to sleep in, you know, and then in the morning he would get up on the bed, and we'd have a beautiful time. There's a dog barking now! He wants to be let in, poor dear! How perfectly idiotic some people are, not to know what a dog wants. I remember that stupid man at home beating poor Peter,—beating him with a hoe, when all the time Peter was telling him that a tramp was stealing the melons. Yes; but when Petie saw that the man was an idiot, he went and attended to the tramp himself, and you never saw a tramp so scared in your life. Oh, dear! well!
"'He was in the room, and went out of it.' I wish I could go out of this room; but I don't know where I should go to. Bertha went, of course, with the others. If it wasn't for Bertha, I really don't think I could possibly stay here."
A knock at the door; and Bertha's square, cheerful face looked in. "Any chance to study here? there's something the matter with my lamp, why,—Peggy!"
For Peggy had jumped up and thrown her arms around her friend's neck, and given her a hug which took her breath.
"Oh, you dear!" cried Peggy. "I never was so glad to see anybody in my life. Here, take this chair, Bertha. Oh, it was just lovely of you to come in. You knew I would be forlorn, I know that was why you came. But why didn't you go on the straw-ride? I supposed of course you had gone."
"One question at a time," pleaded Bertha; "and I can't answer any if you destroy my breathing apparatus, Hippolyta."
"Why Hippolyta?"
"Oh; she was Queen of the Amazons, don'tyou know? Only because you are so strong, my dear."
"No," said Peggy, dolefully. "I never heard of her. Margaret would know, but I am awfully stupid, I told you I was. Do you have rhetoric, Bertha?"
"Not this year. I had it the first two years. It's not so bad; in fact, I was rather fond of it."
Peggy gazed at her in such unfeigned amazement that Bertha could not help laughing; but there was never any sneer in Bertha's laugh. "Come!" she said. "Now we'll sit down and study our prettiest. See! I have a lot of Greek to do. Peggy, don't look like that! What is the matter?"
Peggy had recoiled in horror, her blue eyes opened to their widest extent.
"Greek!" she cried. "You don't—I sha'n't have to take Greek, shall I? because I would rather die, and I should die!"
"Nonsense! no, I don't know that you will have to take it at all. What course have you taken,—scientific? Oh, no, you don't have Greek in that. What have you had to-day?"
"Geometry! Of course that was splendid."
"Oh, indeed! was it?"
"Why, yes; I just love geometry. I could do it all day, but we only have it one hour." And Peggy looked injured.
"Well," said Bertha, "you are a queer girl, Peggy Montfort. But there'll be one happy person in this school, and that is Miss Boyle."
"I don't understand you! Don't most girls,—don't you like geometry, Bertha?"
"My dear, I regard everything in the shape of mathematics with terror and disgust. I don't know any geometry, nor any algebra. I've been through them both, and the more I learned, the more I didn't know. As to arithmetic, I know that four quarts make a gallon, and that really is all my mind is equal to. But if you won't let me study my Greek, Peggy, I shall go home again to the Nest."
"Oh, I do! I will!" cried poor Peggy; and there was silence for a time, both girls studying in earnest, the silence only broken by the turning of a page, or a heartfelt sigh from Peggy as she dealt with parts of speech.
So thoroughly were they absorbed in theirtask that they did not hear sundry noises outside the window. The window was open, for the night was warm as well as bright; indeed, the upper half of it was pushed entirely down, so that it was like a double half-door of glass. Outside this window was the black skeleton of the fire-escape; and if the two girls had been on the alert, they might have heard various unobtrusive sounds from this direction. As it was, they both started violently when a clear voice addressed them in quiet and thoughtful tones.
"Peace to this dwelling!" said the voice.
Peggy looked up hastily. There, leaning on the window-sash, as calm and composed as she had been at the top of the rope, was the stranger with the melancholy eyes and the Madonna braids.
"Peace!" she repeated. "Piece of pie! have some!" She held out a large segment of pie, and added, "Any admittance for the Goat?"
Peggy was still too startled to find breath to answer, but Bertha sprang up, crying, "Grace! how could you frighten us so?"
"Not Grace!" said the stranger, with an unmoved countenance. "Goat! let us not deceive the Innocent! A scapegrace is one thing, a scapegoat is another, and from some points a preferable one. But the Innocent is abroad, I perceive. Innocent, I am the Scapegoat. Is there admittance?"
"Oh!" gasped Peggy, blushing and faltering. "Oh, please come in! I—I didn't know you were waiting for me to— Sha'n't I open it from the bottom?"
"If you will take the pie," said the stranger, gravely; "thank you; that is your piece, this is mine,—already bitten, or I would offer it to the Fluffy."
Relieved of two large pieces of pie, she laid one hand on the sash, and vaulted lightly over; then she shook hands solemnly with Peggy, took her own piece of pie, and, seating herself on the floor, proceeded to eat it daintily.
"It is a good pie!" she said. "If not afraid of pollution, Fluffy, a bite?"
Bertha was looking half amused, half angry. "Grace, how can you act so?" she said.
"How?" said Grace. "My sweet child, itis as easy as breathing. I will give instruction at any time, without charge."
"I thought you were doing double lessons," Bertha went on, "and being as good as gold. Grace, you can be so good!"
"Can't I!" said Grace; her tone was one of admiring gravity; her blue eyes kept their look of pensive sadness.
"And it's a thing I admire, goodness!" she went on, shaking her head. "That's why I practise it. Double lessons? I'll warrant you! this is the second time I have been down here to-night, for example; other things in proportion." She waved her hand, and fell to again at her pie.
Peggy had been sitting open-eyed, watching this singular person, not knowing what to say. Now, however, meeting the solemn gaze of the large sad eyes, she felt compelled to speech.
"It—it's delicious!" she said, timidly. "Wouldn't you rather sit in a chair, Miss—" she hesitated, not liking to say "Grace."
"Oh, dear!" said Bertha, still put out. "You make me forget my manners andeverything, Grace. Peggy, this is Miss Grace Wolfe; Grace, Miss Peggy Montfort."
"Charmed!" said Miss Wolfe. "But we have met before, Fluffy, or I should not have descended."
"We met, 'twas on a rope,And I thought she had done me;I felt, I could not feel,For my fate was upon me.
"If it hadn't been for your possession of peas, you would have beaten me, Miss Montfort. As it was, here's to our next meeting under the ceiling!" She took a large bite of pie, and regarded Peggy benevolently.
"Of peas?" repeated Peggy, vaguely, feeling that this might be English, but was not sense.
"Precisely.Avoir du pois, literally, to possess a pea! The French language. But you should have seen Vexation!" this strange person added, turning to Bertha. "Did see her? Well, she was a pleasant sight. Noxious animal, Vexation! It is a joy to see her taken down occasionally."
"I notice you are good friends enough, where any mischief is afoot!" said Bertha,bluntly. She broke a corner off the pie, and added, "Goat, this is mince pie!"
"It is! it is!" said Miss Wolfe. "Ever discriminating, my own! And good? Say it is good, Fluffy!"
"Yes, it is uncommonly good!" said Bertha. "Where did you get it? You've no business to have it, of course!"
"I got it out of a bandbox, sweet one!" replied Grace Wolfe. "It lives—they live, I should say, for there are three of them, thanks be to praise!—in a bandbox. A round one, or, to be more exact, oval in form, covered with wall-paper, whereon purple scrolls dispute the mastery with pink lozenges. It's the sweetest thing in bandboxes that I've seen since time was."
"Yes, but the pies!"
"The pies! as I was saying, three of them; ample, full moons of rapture!
"They came in beauty, side by side,They filled one home with glee.Their bones are scattered—"
She paused with an expressive gesture.
"The best of it is,—you will admit that this is neat, Fluffy, even if your slavery to the virtues compels your disapproval,—the best of it is, the bandbox is the property of our Puggy."
"Miss Pugsley's bandbox! Oh, Grace!"
"Precisely! Our Puggy goes heavily without it, I am told. What would you? It was outside her door, while sweeping was going on; one is human, after all. She was out, with the best bonnet on her head. Poor head! Poor bonnet! My hearty commiseration for both! When she returned, no bandbox! At present she harries the domestics; she hasn't thought of me yet, for a wonder. To-morrow, or the day after, I shall finish the pies—alas! Then I return the repository, and her bonnet acquires a fine, full, fruity flavour that annihilation alone can remove.
"You may break, you may shatterThe tile if you will,But the scent of the brandyWill cling round it still."
"Grace! What a diabolical plot! and youhave been lying awake, I suppose, chuckling over this!"
Miss Wolfe waved her hand in deprecation. "Not lying awake, sweet one! Too slight a thing for that; still, it served to amuse. One must live, even you will admit that. What's this? Greek? Give it me!" She stretched out her hand for the book, but Bertha held it fast.
"No! no, Goat; I want it myself, and besides, you have no business here, you know you haven't."
"No; and you?" replied the other, coolly.
"I have permission; my lamp is out of order, and I asked Miss Russell if I might study in here," said Bertha. "But you will get into trouble if you stay, Grace, you know you will. Be good now, and go home!"
Grace Wolfe gazed pensively at her.
"You would check the interchange of souls?" she said. "I feel drawn to this Innocent, Fluff! I feel that she may have an influence over me for good. You would not part us? Could'st love a Goat, Innocent?"she added, turning to Peggy, and fixing her eyes on her with mournful intensity.
Peggy blushed, but before she could reply Bertha struck in decidedly.
"Grace, just one word! Peggy Montfort is a stranger, and I am not going to let her get into trouble if I can help it. And I don't want you to get into trouble, either!" she added, more gently. "You know, my dear—"
She stopped suddenly, for Grace Wolfe threw up her hand with a warning gesture; then, with a single swift movement, she rolled under the bed, and was out of sight.
"Study!" said Bertha, in a low whisper. "Studyhard!"
Wholly bewildered, Peggy fixed her eyes on her book. She had heard no sound before, but now came a footfall in the corridor. A knock at the door, and Miss Russell opened it and looked in.
"Your lamp is in order now, Bertha," she said. "I thought I would tell you, as I was going by; but you can stay a little longer, if you like. How charming you have made your room, Miss Montfort."
"Won't—won't you come in, Miss Russell?" stammered poor Peggy, conscious of Grace Wolfe's eyes under the bed, yet feeling that civility admitted of only one answer.
"Not now, thank you! Some day soon I shall come and make you a little visit, though, with pleasure. Good night, young ladies!"
She nodded kindly, closed the door, and passed on.
The girls drew breath. A moment, and Grace Wolfe rolled out again, rose, and shook her neat dress.
"So much for Buckingham!" she said. "The good point about Principie is, she is respectable. Now, my Puggy would have looked through the keyhole first. But I foresee a visit to my own humble cot, to see whether I have learned my lessons.
"Oh! Farewell, friends!Here Thisbe ends!"
She waved her hand, vaulted once more over the window, and was gone. An occasional faint, cat-like sound told of her progressup the fire-escape; then a window creaked slightly overhead, and all was silent.
Bertha Haughton ruffled up her curly black locks with a gesture of exasperation.
"And the worst of it is," she said, "that girl will know her Greek better than any one in class. That's half the trouble; she learns so quickly, her lessons don't take half her time, and she puts the rest into mischief."
"She seems awfully clever!" said Peggy, timidly.
Bertha nodded. "She is just that, my dear; awfully clever! I'll tell you more about her to-morrow, but now we must study hard, for we've only twenty minutes left. Only, my dear, when you think of the Goat, remember three things: she is D. D. D.,—dear, delightful,—and dangerous!"
The next morning proved a hard one for Peggy; the rhetoric lesson was the first that must be recited. She had studied it hard, but somehow the rules seemed to make little impression. Whenever she tried to fix them in her mind, there came between her and the page two melancholy blue eyes, and she seemed to hear a voice of singular quality, a voice with a thrill in it, saying, "Could'st love a Goat, Innocent?"
So she was not as well prepared as she should have been when she went into the class; and on meeting Miss Pugsley's cold greenish brown eye, what she did know seemed to evaporate from the top of her head, leaving a total blank. She stumbled and floundered; she did not know what anantecedent was, and she could not remember ever to have heard of a reciprocal pronoun.
"Pray, Miss Montfort, were you asleep or awake when you studied this lesson?" inquired Miss Pugsley, with acrid calm.
"I don't know!" replied Peggy, now thoroughly bewildered.
"Well, if you were asleep, let me recommend you to try it again when you wake up; or if you were awake, perhaps you might do it better in your sleep."
Peggy flushed scarlet, and the ready tears sprang into her eyes; but she forced them back, bit her lip, and tried not to feel the eyes of the whole class bent on her in amused astonishment. Miss Pugsley seemed to take positive pleasure in her ignorance and embarrassment. She put one question after another, each more ingeniously contrived than the last—or so it seemed—to show what Peggy did not know. At last, in self-defence, the poor child took refuge in one simple and invariable answer: "I don't know!" So confused was she that these words were the only ones she could utter, even when she knewthe correct answer, or would have done so if she could have collected her wits. By the end of the hour, Peggy was entirely convinced that she was the dunce and butt of the school; that she knew nothing, and never would know anything.
It seemed a cruel stroke of fate that this terrible period should be followed by that of general history, for Peggy detested history, as some of my readers already know. She went into the next class-room with an aching head, and a heart throbbing with a sense of utter worthlessness in herself, and of bitter cruelty in others. She did not even look up at the teacher, but kept her eyes fixed on her desk, and answered the few questions that meant anything to her, sullenly and unwillingly. She did try at first to follow the lesson, but her head ached so, the words seemed to sing themselves into mere nonsense, and she soon gave up the attempt; the more so as this teacher, who had been observing her pretty closely, for some reason or other asked her very few questions. At last, however, the blow fell.
"Where did Philip of Macedon come from, Miss Montfort?"
"I don't know," said Peggy.
"Oh, I think you do," said Miss Cortlandt, with a pleasant smile, and checking, with a warning glance, the rising giggle.
"Try again, Miss Montfort. Philip the Great, Philip of Macedon,—where did he come from? Surely you can tell me!"
"I don't know," said Peggy, doggedly; and at the moment she actually did not.
"My dear child," said the teacher, "did you ever hear what was the colour of Washington's gray mare?"
"No, ma'am," said Peggy.
"Well, what was it?"
"I don't know."
Emily Cortlandt had graduated from college the year before. She laid down her pencil, and looked very kindly at the distracted girl.
"I think you are not feeling well, Miss Montfort," she said. "Does your head ache?"
"Yes, ma'am," said Peggy. She could not have said another word; her whole strengthwas needed to keep back the flood of tears that was rising, rising.
"You need not stay through the lesson," Miss Cortlandt went on, and the sympathy in her voice only brought the flood higher and nearer.
"You can make up the lesson to me some other time. Now, you would better go and lie down for a little, and then take a turn in the fresh air. Miss Bangs, what was the date of Philip's first invasion?"
Peggy never knew how she got out of the class-room. She longed to give at least a grateful look at the kind soul who had saved her, but her eyes were already swimming in tears. She fled along the corridor, sobbing hysterically, blinded with tears, conscious of only one thing, the desperate resolve to get to her room, before she broke down altogether. Flying thus around a corner, she rushed headlong into a group of girls who were gathered around something, she could not tell what. So violent was the shock that Peggy reeled and struck her head sharply against the wall. This brought her to herself. She caught backthe sob on her lips, and dashed the tears from her eyes before any one saw them,—or so she hoped; then she looked to see what was going on. Next moment she had forgotten that there were such things as tears in the world.
There were six or eight girls in the group, mostly sophomores, though a few were freshmen. They were looking down at something—somebody—crouching on the floor against the wall, and their laughter, checked for an instant by Peggy's onset, broke out afresh. "Here's Peggy Montfort, just in time to see the fun. Look, Miss Montfort, and see the fashions! Straight from Paris, and the very last thing!"
The speaker was Blanche Haight, a tall sophomore with bleached hair, and eyes set too near together. She was considered a wit, and every time she spoke the other girls giggled and screamed.
The person crouching on the floor was Lobelia Parkins. Her head was pressed against the wall, her face hidden in her hands; misery and terror were in every lineof her poor little shrinking figure, but this only gave added delight to her tormentors.
"Look, ladies, at the new sleeve!" cried Miss Haight, lifting the skinny arm, from which the blue poplin sleeve hung in an awkward fashion. "Did you ever see anything so exquisite? Look at the fringe, will you, and the pattern? I'm going to get Miss Russell to put her up on exhibition, so the whole school can have the benefit; it's a shame to keep it to ourselves!"
"He! he! he!" went all the girls. "Blanche, you are too funny for anything!"
"Where did your mother get it?" asked another; and this, as Peggy saw with a shock, was pretty Rose Barclay. "Did the ragman bring it around, or did she pick it up in the gutter? Say, Miss Parkins, I wish you'd tell us, 'cause we all want to know."
"Yes, of course we want to know!" cried Miss Haight. "I'm going to write this very night, to see if Mumma can't get me one like it. I never shall be happy till I—"
That sentence never was finished. The speaker found her own arm seized in a gripof iron, which forced her to drop the poor little arm in the blue sleeve. She was forced back against the wall, and found herself confronted by a pair of blue eyes blazing with righteous wrath.
"How dare you?" cried Peggy Montfort, in a voice that quivered with rage. "You mean, cowardly brute, how dare you? Touch her again, and I'll choke the words down your throat!"
Blanche Haight gasped for a moment; indeed, the whole group was cowed by this sudden vision of strength and fury. But she recovered herself in a moment.
"Well, indeed!" she said. "I should like to know what this means, Miss Montfort? I should like to know who gave you authority to choke people, and abuse them, and call them names?"
"You'll find out what it means!" said Peggy, waiving the second question, and replying to the first. "If you touch that child again, or so much as speak to her, I'll choke you."
"Girls, do you hear this?" cried BlancheHaight. "Are you going to stand by, and let this girl ride over us?"
"Shame!" cried the girls. "Bully!"
"Bully!" cried Peggy, dropping her hold of Miss Haight, and turning to face the others. "You call me a bully, and you yourselves, eight great grown girls, standing around to torment and torture this poor helpless child? Shame on you! Shame on you all, every one! I'm ashamed to be in the same school with you. I—" (Here, I am sorry to say, Peggy forgot that she was a young lady, forgot everything save that she was the daughter of hot-blooded James Montfort.) "I could whip the whole lot of you, and I'll do it if you dare to say 'Boo!' but you don't!"
It was a fact that no one did say "Boo!" There was a pause, Peggy standing with folded arms before the shrinking child, her whole figure dilated with passion, till she seemed to tower above the rest, who for their part cowered before her.
Rose Barclay was the first to speak.
"We are very fortunate to find a leader for the freshman class," she said, spitefully,"and such a leader! Miss Montfort is too high-toned to help a classmate with her lesson, but not too high-toned to talk like a Bowery rowdy. Come, along, girls! I for one don't care to listen to any more such refined, elegant talk!"
"Yes, you'd better go along!" said Peggy, the Valkyr, briefly.
"Pray, may I ask," said Blanche Haight, with a bitter sneer, "are you monitor of this corridor?"
"No," said a voice behind her; "but I am."
A girl had come quietly up the stairs, and was now standing close beside the excited group, none of whom had seen or heard her,—a tall girl, with red-gold hair, dressed as if she had just come from a journey.
"I am the monitor of this corridor," she repeated. "Please go to your rooms, or I shall be obliged to report you."
The girls shrunk together, whispering, the freshmen questioning the sophomores.
"Who is it? Who is it?"
"Hush! It's the junior president. Come along!"
The group melted away; another moment, and all were gone save Peggy, who was now on the floor, with her arms around the little miserable creature, who still shrank close against the wall, as if her life depended on the contact.
"There, dear!" she cried. "They are gone. Come! Don't huddle up so, you poor little thing. Those brutes are gone, and there's nobody here but me, Peggy, and—" she glanced up at the tall girl. "Oh! won't you help me?" she cried. "I think—she doesn't seem to hear what I am saying. Oh, is she dead?"
"No," said the monitor. "I think she has fainted, though, poor little soul! We must carry her to her room. Do you know where it is? I have only just come back, and don't know where the freshmen are."
"No, I don't know, but I'll take her to my room; I'm in No. 18. Oh, I can carry her alone; she's all skin and bone; she doesn't weigh anything."
The little figure in the staring poplin gown hung quite limp, as Peggy lifted it. "You'dbetter let me help," said the tall girl, kindly. "We can make her more comfortable; so!"
Together they carried her to Peggy's room, and laid her on the bed. It was really more fright and distress than actual fainting, for she soon opened her eyes, and looked eagerly at Peggy, but closed them again with a faint cry, at sight of the stranger.
"You needn't be afraid of her!" cried Peggy, eagerly. "She isn't one of them; she's none of that horrid crowd. I don't know who you are," she said, "but I'm ever and ever and ever so much obliged to you. I don't know whether you heard what they were saying."
And she poured out an indignant account of the cruelty she had witnessed and put a stop to. The stranger's eyes were stern enough, as she listened. "I heard only the end of it," she said, briefly, "but where I see Blanche Haight, I am never surprised at anything cruel or cowardly. I am very glad to know you; it was a mercy that you happened to come along just then. I hope we shall be friends, Miss—is it Miss Montfort?"
"Oh, that I will!" cried Peggy, responding with all her warm heart to the sweet smile and the lovely look in the clear blue eyes. "Oh, I should like to ever so much; but I don't know your name, do I?"
The stranger smiled again. "They call me the Snowy Owl," she said, "but my name is Gertrude Merryweather."
When Peggy escorted Lobelia Parkins back to her room, she found that it was the one directly above her own. Point for point, the rooms were alike, fire-escape and all,—so far as the actual outlines were concerned; there, however, the likeness ended. There had been no Uncle John, no Margaret, in this case. The room was furnished, evidently, by the same hand that had dressed the girl, and with equal taste. The carpet on the floor was costly, but hideous as staring colours and execrable design could make it. The furniture was cumbrous, and the fact that the ugly chairs were rosewood, and their cushions brocade, made them neither beautiful nor comfortable. On the bureau were some bottles of red Bohemian glass, such as were thoughthandsome fifty years ago; an elephant of a writing-desk, staring with plush and gilding, almost covered the table. Altogether, the room was as desolate as its occupant; more could not be said. Lobelia seemed smaller and more shrunken than ever amid all this tasteless display; she seemed conscious of it, too, as she gazed piteously at Peggy. She had been crying, in a furtive, frightened way; and, gazing at her, Peggy felt that it must be years ago that she was crying, too, and hoping for nothing in the world save to get to her room and have a good solid deluge of tears. At present it seemed hardly likely that she should ever weep again; she felt strong and confident, and was still burning with indignation, none the less hotly that the outward flame had gone down. Her kind companion had been obliged to leave them, with the promise of seeing them soon again. Peggy thought she might stay a few minutes, though the gong for gym had already rung.
"Now, Lobelia," she was saying,—"I am going to call you Lobelia, you know, and you are to call me Peggy, and we are going to befriends. Now, Lobelia, mind what I say! if those girls ever give you any more trouble, you are to come straight to me. Do you hear?"
"Yes," said Lobelia, faintly.
"Have they tormented you before? Beasts! Or was this the first time?"
"Oh, not—not so much!" said the girl, deprecatingly. "A little yesterday; but—I don't know whether they meant to be unkind, Peggy. I know that my dressisqueer!"
"Don't be so meek!" cried Peggy, unable to repress a little stamp of her foot, which made Lobelia start. "Have some spirit of your own, Lobelia. I tell you, these girls are mean, cowardly wretches, not fit for girls like the Owls to speak to. They don't speak to them much, either," she added, "and I'm not going to any more than I can help."
Lobelia looked more miserable than ever. "Don't!" she said. "I can't bear to have any one get into trouble on my account. It—it needn't matter to you, Peggy. Of course you are very, very kind, and I think I shouldhave died if you had not come along just then, for I couldn't seem to bear much more; but I don't want you to get into trouble."
"Who's going to get into trouble?" demanded Peggy. "Guess I can take care of myself against such a set as that."
"I don't want you to get into trouble!" repeated Lobelia; and, as she spoke, she glanced around the room with a peculiar shrinking look, one would say a look of dread, that Peggy did not understand.
"Who's next door to you?" she asked, briefly. "Rose Barclay, for one, I know. Who is on the other side?"
Lobelia thought it was another freshman, but was not sure.
"Have they troubled you?" asked Peggy, suspiciously.
But Lobelia shook her head, and seemed so distressed at the question that Peggy did not know what to think.
"Please, please don't bother about me!" she implored. "I dare say it will be a good deal better now, after you and Miss Merryweather being so brave and so kind. I don'twant to say anything against anybody. Please, please forget all about it, Peggy."
"I want you to be brave yourself," cried Peggy; and Lobelia started again, and shrank in her chair. "Don't be so—so—well, I don't know any word but meeching, and Margaret won't let me say that. But have a spirit of your own, and stand up to them, and give 'em as good as they send. I would, I tell you, quick enough, if they tried it on me."
Lobelia looked at her with hopeless eyes. "But I am not you!" she said. "I—Peggy, I know just how I look, and how I seem, and how little and ugly and queer I am. I don't wonder they laugh, I don't, really. I haven't any spirit, either; I can't have. You can't do anything with me; it isn't any use."
Peggy gazed at her, with eyes almost as hopeless as her own. Yet she must make one more attempt; and with it the honest blood came into her face.
"Look here, Lobelia!" she said, "I am awkward, too, and shy, and—and stupid, awfully stupid. Why, my cousin Rita used to call me—nevermind, that was only before she grew so kind! But I know what it is to be laughed at, my dear! Only this morning, in rhetoric, Miss Pugsley was just as hateful as she could be, and all the girls laughed; yes, they did. So you are not so different as you think. Why,—I don't mind telling you,—when I came along just now, I was trying to get to my own room, so that I could have a good cry. There, Lobelia! now how do you feel?" Lobelia raised her eyes with a wondering look; but next moment her eyes fell on the looking-glass and she shook her head.
"No!" she said. "No, Peggy! You are kind, and you want to make me feel comfortable; but look!"
She motioned toward the mirror. Peggy looked, and her kind heart sank. She herself was no beauty; her round, fair face and honest blue eyes were pleasant to look at, and she had beautiful hair, but that was all; yet she could not help seeing that she was a very vision of loveliness beside the sallow, puny, almost deformed aspect of her poorlittle neighbour. She coloured deep with angry sympathy, but Lobelia only smiled, a wan little smile.
"You see!" she said. "It's no use, Peggy."
For all answer, Peggy threw her arms around the shrinking figure, and pressed it in a warm embrace. "I don't care!" she cried. "I don't say you are pretty, you poor little thing, but just remember that you are my friend, and if anybody dares to meddle with you again, they'll have to reckon with me, that's all. And now I must go, or I shall lose all the drill. Cheer up, Lobelia, and don't sit here and mope, mind! and if you have any more trouble, just knock on the floor, and I'll be up in half a quarter of a jiffy. Good-bye, dear!" and off she ran, feeling that at least she had left some degree of comfort and cheer behind her.
Soon, however, came something that put Lobelia Parkins and her troubles out of Peggy's head for the time. Bertha Haughton was not at the gymnasium, but when Peggy came back to her own room after an hour ofrapture, she found a note pinned on her pincushion.