CHAPTER XX
AN EVENTFUL PICNIC
For some time Peggy had been waiting anxiously for warm weather. Not that Peggy had any quarrel with the winter months. Her vigorous constitution responded joyfully to the challenge of the cold. When the snow "crunched" under her elastic tread, and the air was full of frost crystals, and the wind whistled boisterously, and played tricks with people's hats and umbrellas, then Peggy's eyes were brightest and the blood in her veins raced most jubilantly.
Peggy's reasons for being impatient for spring's return were not personal ones. They concerned the Dunn family. Various remarks let fall by Estelle, Isabel and the others, had indicated such incredible ignorance of the country, that at first Peggy could not believe that it was not assumed. Gradually, however, she had reached the conclusion that these children, living within a few miles of grass-covered acres and groves of trees, knew as little of either as young Hottentots might be supposed to know of the North Pole.
Along in February Peggy's friends began to hear plans discussed for giving the Dunns a day's outing in the country, as soon as spring should arrive in earnest. Little by little they had all come to feel a personal interest in the affair. Indeed "Peggy's Dunns" had gradually grown to be almost a neighborhood possession, and more than one household had their welfare at heart.
When Peggy decided that the grass was green enough, the air balmy enough, and the orchard trees sufficiently like bridal bouquets to make it practicable to carry out her plan, she passed the word along the line. And in honor of the occasion Amy fell to making fudge, and Priscilla bribed Susan to undertake a batch of doughnuts which would go a long way toward satisfying the inner cravings of the picnic party.
Elaine had not expected to share in the fun. But when she came home one Friday evening to announce that, owing to the presence of calsiminers in the office, the next day would be a holiday, Peggy was inclined to regard the occurrence as an especial interposition of Providence. And truth to tell, the sequel did not cause her to change her mind in that regard.
"It's perfectly heavenly to think that you can go with us. And now perhaps you can coax Grace into coming. It would do her any amount of good."
But Grace, though the change in her from day to day was almost as marked as that taking place in the springtime world, drew the line at chaperoning the Dunn family for a day in the country. The rest of the girls went along, Peggy, Priscilla, Ruth, Amy--now restored to her customary cheerfulness--and Elaine, who, after the long hours and close confinement of office work, found the prospect of a day in the open unspeakably alluring. Each girl had a child in charge, for though Francesca could not leave the factory Jimmy had succeeded in arranging his business affairs so as to take a day off, and the Dunn picnickers numbered five.
They were an odd quintet, as they climbed aboard the street car, for though "Peggy's Dunns" were the first ones thought of along the Terrace when outgrown clothing was to be given away, Mrs. Dunn seemed to have a genius for putting the half-worn suit on the boy it could not fit by any possibility, and for dividing up the girls' garments so that each should present as patched and piecemeal an appearance as possible. But, after all, the misfit coats and mismated skirts mattered very little, Peggy thought, since the faces of the company were beaming with anticipation.
Peggy had selected a charming picnic ground on the edge of a small lake, lying in a cup-shaped hollow, with woods for a background, where spring flowers palpitatingly awaited discovery, and with farmhouses accessible, where milk could be purchased, and other provisions, for that matter, if the contents of the lunch baskets gave out. Peggy, however, had no concern over this possibility, for to all appearances the aforesaid baskets contained ample provisions for fifty.
The Dunns knew what to expect. There was to be a lake, and woods, and wild-flowers, for Miss Peggy had said so, but that the terms meant little to them was proved when Estelle uttered an excited cry. "There's the lake!"
The others joined in rapturously. "Ain't it grand!" "O, my!" Peggy turned wonderingly.
"Lake! Why, we're not nearly there. O, you poor children!" For Estelle's grimy forefinger was pointing triumphantly at a puddle in an adjacent field, a pool perhaps ten feet across, its surface ruffled by a cheerful little breeze. "Well, there's one comfort," Peggy thought. "They'll be wiser before they get home."
When the real lake came in view, the Dunns were breathless with excitement. They climbed down from the street car on the edge of a green meadow and the children walked gingerly across the turf, looking about them apprehensively, as if on the lookout for the warning, "Keep off the Grass." Isabel, who had fallen a little behind, galloped up to Peggy with a spring beauty in her hand.
"Miss Peggy!" She was breathing hard, but whether from her run or from excitement Peggy did not know. "Miss Peggy, kin they put me in jail for that?"
"O, dear!" Peggy cried, an unaccountable lump appearing in her throat. "They won't put you in jail for picking all the flowers you can carry home. Can't I make you understand that everything here belongs to everybody?"
It was a very wonderful picnic. Jimmy Dunn had visited the city park, and boasted a proud familiarity with trees and birds. But the other children could not recover from their amazement at seeing trees that did not grow in rows, out of squares obligingly left in cement sidewalks for that particular purpose, while the unexpected discovery of a blue bird was as startling as the appearance of a blue rabbit would be to the majority of people. "I thought birds was brown," drawled Johnny Dunn. "They is down 'round us."
"Maybe they gets sooty," suggested Estelle wisely. "My, wouldn't it be grand, though, if they'd get washed up, and be flying 'round all red and yaller and ev'ry color."
"LUNCHEON WAS SERVED SHORTLY AFTER THEIR ARRIVAL.""LUNCHEON WAS SERVED SHORTLY AFTER THEIR ARRIVAL."
"LUNCHEON WAS SERVED SHORTLY AFTER THEIR ARRIVAL."
Luncheon was served shortly after their arrival. "I don't know why it is," Peggy confessed. "But it always seems as if you couldn't get fairly started on a picnic, till you'd had something to eat. I feel that way myself and I guess these children are just the same only more so." Accordingly they sat in a ring in the fresh young grass, and disposed of such quantities of sandwiches and doughnuts that the scientific estimate of the capacity of the human stomach was then and there proved incorrect, beyond a shadow of a doubt. Peggy expected that the gorged Dunns would find a period of inactivity necessary, but instead of stretching in somnolent attitudes under the trees when the moment arrived that they could hold no more, they scattered in all directions. As it seemed quite impossible that they should get into mischief or danger the girls left them to their own devices, and sat talking happily while the breeze brought the coolness of the little lake, and the fragrance of the apple orchards, mingled with more delicate scents, the perfume of the moist earth, the breath of tiny flowers fading unseen, perhaps, but making earth the sweeter for their blooming.
"I found some grand ones."
Peggy looked up smilingly into Estelle's radiant face. Then she got to her feet rapidly, for the child's hands were filled with early garden flowers, with several clusters of geraniums showing up dazzlingly among the more modest blossoms. "Where did you get them?" Peggy gasped.
"Over back of that house." Estelle gestured with her treasures in the direction of a snug-looking farmhouse standing on a rise of land above the lake.
"Don't pick any more there, dear. I guess those flowers belong to the people who live in the house. But all the flowers in the woods, and growing around the meadows, belong to everybody." She made a grimace at the other girls, over the head of the unconscious Estelle. "I've got to go up to the farmhouse and explain matters."
"I'll go with you," said Elaine, jumping to her feet, and the two started up the long slope, Peggy sighing penitently. "It was all my fault. I was so anxious those children shouldn't think they were going to be arrested if they picked a dandelion, I guess I went a little too far the other way. Who would have thought that they would have stumbled on a garden first thing?"
The farmer's wife, being indoors, had not noticed the rifling of her garden, but so far from displaying annoyance over Peggy's explanations, she was manifestly interested. "I've heard tell," she replied, "that some of those city children set store by flowers to beat all. And she picked her hands full, did she? Didn't know the difference between wildflowers and garden stuff? Well, well!"
But when Peggy, producing a not over-full pocketbook, made tentative offers to pay for the damage Estelle had wrought, the good woman's protest waxed indignant.
"Now I'd like to know what you take me for? Pay for 'em? I'd be ashamed to look my husband in the face when he came in if I took your money." She went to the window and looked with interest down the long slope, to the slight figures moving with such joyous abandon. "All brothers and sisters, you say?"
"Yes, and there's two others not here, a sister who's about fourteen and the baby."
"And we haven't chick nor child," said the farmer's wife. The shadow that crossed her kindly face, as she stood watching the small flitting shapes, had not lifted when Peggy and Elaine said good-bye.
At the door Peggy had an idea, and halted. "There isn't any boat that we could get around here, is there? I'd like to take those children out on the water if I could."
The farmer's wife came to the door. "Why, we've got an old dug-out tied down under the willows. It leaks a little, but you'd have to load it with stone to sink it. We keep it there, 'cause it's handier if we want to go to Mr. Miller's, t'other side of the lake, to row across, than to go all the way 'round. 'Tain't so easy rowing as it might be, but you're welcome to it if you want it."
The ungainly craft, tied under the sheltering willow trees, did not look as if it would be so easy rowing. But the girls undaunted, took their seats, each with a pair of oars, and started bravely for the other shore, the water slapping the square end of the dug-out, as if the two were in a plot to make progress slow and difficult. The appearance of the boat was hailed with shrieks of delight by the Dunn family, who rushed to the water's edge to view its advance.
"There's room enough for all of them at once, if it wouldn't be too heavy," Peggy remarked.
"O, I guess we can take them all," returned Elaine, tugging at her oars. "They'll be satisfied if we just keep it moving, you know."
"They're all waiting to welcome us." Peggy glanced at the row of motionless figures, ranged along the shore as if held spell-bound by the spectacle afforded by the stately craft and the toiling oarsmen. Then instinctively Peggy began counting, "Three, four, five. Where's number five?"
"It's one of the little girls that's missing, Estelle or Isabel. I can't tell them apart." Elaine's eyes travelled from the waiting row, across a clump of trees reaching to the water's edge, on to the cleared acres belonging to the Miller farm. Then she uttered a startled exclamation.
"Peggy! See that child! Will she know enough to let them alone?"
"What? Where?" Wildly Peggy's eyes followed those of her friend, and at the sight which had prompted Elaine's frightened question Peggy rested on her oars, staring blankly ahead.
Against the green of the hillside rows of little white boxes stood out in bold relief. Among them wandered Isabel Dunn, as Gulliver might have wended his way among the habitations of Lilliput, looking about her with a curiosity that betrayed no twinge of timidity.
"Bee-hives!" Peggy gasped. "And I suppose she never heard of such a thing as a bee-sting. O, if she'd only look this way!"
But Isabel Dunn was too absorbed in her own discovery to have any eyes for the pageant on the lake, so attractive to the other members of her family. She stood absorbed in front of one of the hives, watching the busy occupants with an interest which owed part of its zest to the fact that here was something of which Miss Peggy had said nothing. Out in the country folks made houses for bugs to live in. She wondered that Miss Peggy had failed to comment on such surprising philanthropy.
Heedless of the line-up of the Dunn family, eagerly anticipating a row, the girls turned the boat toward the absorbed student of nature. Apprehension put fresh energy into their stroke. The dug-out toiled ahead at what was really a surprising rate of speed. The little Dunns, disappointed, joined in a howl of protest. The sound reached Isabel's ears, and she turned, inadvertently stumbling against a hive. An instant later, her knowledge of natural history was increased by a significant item, in a fashion to impress it on her memory indelibly.
Shrieking wildly, Isabel started down the slope, the enraged bees in pursuit. Peggy and Elaine had thought they were pulling their hardest but at the sight of the child's danger the dug-out seemed fairly to leap ahead, like a lazy horse pricked with a spur and roused to unwonted speed.
Down the hill came Isabel, gaining momentum with every step, driven to frenzy by the darts of her relentless pursuers. Whether the blue lake seemed a refuge, or whether she would have rushed with equal blindness into flames, it is impossible to say. But it is certain when she reached the water's edge she kept on running, with the result that in an instant she had splashed out of sight, while the boat was still some distance away.
"Pull!" gasped Peggy. "Pull hard!" But she would have done better to save her breath, for Elaine, her lips parted, showing her clenched teeth, was putting into each stroke every ounce of energy at her disposal. In an appallingly short time, a tow-colored head came to the surface of the water and again disappeared.
"A little harder on the right oar," warned Elaine. Again she set her teeth and pulled. Again the mop of drenched hair showed on the surface of the water and went under. The girls watched to see it come in sight again, but it did not reappear.
"She's not coming up." Elaine rose in the boat, kicking off her low shoes, and unfastening her heavy walking skirt. Then she went over the side with the ease and celerity of the practised swimmer. Peggy, who had not added swimming to her many accomplishments, and had watched for Isabel's reappearance in an agony of helplessness, felt hope revive. Elaine seemed so sure of herself that it was impossible not to share in her confidence.
The little group on the shore had discovered what was happening. The children ran about crying shrilly. Above the sound of their frightened voices rose Amy's lamentations as she wailed, "O, why didn't I watch her! O, why didn't I watch her!" Not that Peggy spared time just then to interpret the medley of sounds beating upon her ears. She saw nothing but the placid water, heard nothing but the sound of the little ripples breaking against the boat's side.
Elaine came to the surface, after some seemingly interminable seconds, spluttered, filled her lungs and went under again. Peggy, white and shaking, sat crouched in her seat. O, those crawling seconds, that terrible waiting, the ghastly uncertainty. She felt the scented breeze in her face, and dimly realized that overhead the sky was blue. A snatch of bird-song dropping to her ears made her suspense seem unreal. It could not be that this dreadful thing was happening, while all the world around was unchanged.
Peggy came out of her trance when Elaine's dripping head cleaved the blue water. This time Elaine did not come alone. Her left hand was supporting a limp little figure, whose hair floated on the surface of the water like yellow seaweed. Half a dozen strokes brought Peggy alongside the pair. Leaning over, she took Elaine's burden from her. The head that swayed like a broken flower, the open, unseeing eyes, the colorless face, seemed to her inexperience proof that the worst had happened. She sat like one stunned while Elaine gripped the dug-out and pulled her dripping self over the side.
"Quick, Peggy!" Elaine's teeth were chattering, for though the sun was bright the water of the little lake still retained a coolness suggestive of melting snow. "Quick! We must get her to the house, as soon as we can, and get to work."
The suggestion that something still could be done, put new life into Peggy. It is quite certain that the clumsy dug-out made record time in reaching the landing. The farmer's wife was waiting for them there, and she took the unconscious child in her motherly arms, and almost ran up the slope, while the girls followed, Elaine walking with difficulty in her wet clothing, Peggy weak from fear.
Fortunately for them all the suspense was nearly over. For the farmer's wife had hardly begun her work of resuscitation when a soft little sigh escaped from the child's blue lips. A minute after she opened her eyes. Apparently it was too great an effort to be prolonged, for immediately she closed, them again. But the flutter of the lids was enough to render Peggy limp with relief and thankfulness.
"There! There! Have a good cry if you feel like it," exclaimed the farmer's wife, bustling about. "There ain't nothing like a good cry, if anybody's been all keyed up. I'll get some hot milk down her, and she'll be all right. But your friend had better be getting out of her wet things, or she'll be coming down with something. 'Tain't too late yet for pneumonia."
It was a good thing for Peggy to divert her mind with anxiety about Elaine, who, having been duly rubbed and given something hot to drink, was ordered to bed, while her clothing dried by the kitchen fire. By this time Isabel was sufficiently revived so that the other children could be admitted to admire her appearance as she lay between blankets smelling strongly of the ammonia which the farmer's wife had applied to the bee stings. There was a gleam of envy in Estelle's eyes as she gazed upon her sister. It was not fair that Isabel should have everything, first be stung by bees, and then nearly drowned. It would have been more generous of her to have divided those claims to distinction with some equally deserving member of the family.
"Seems like a shame to disturb that child by trying to take her home to-day," said the farmer's wife. "Why don't you leave her with me over Sunday? By that time she wouldn't get any harm from going out."
"I don't know as she would be willing to stay," Peggy replied, but when the case was laid before Isabel she indicated the greatest satisfaction with her present surroundings. Isabel was not accustomed to being a person of importance. She liked the sensation, as she liked the softness of the bed on which she lay and the brightness and neatness of the pleasant little room.
"Of course it would be a great deal better for her to stay. Do you think your mother would mind, Jimmy?" asked Peggy, reflecting that the responsibility of taking a party of children to the country for a day was greater than she could have imagined. Jimmy's attitude was reassuring. "Ma! Why, she'll be glad to get rid of her over Sunday," he declared. "Pa hates so many underfoot on Sundays." It was accordingly arranged that the farmer's wife should bring Isabel home Monday morning, provided Isabel's condition warranted it. Otherwise she was to communicate with Peggy, who assumed the responsibility of conveying the information to Mrs. Dunn.
The picnic was resumed, awaiting the drying of Elaine's clothing, but it is safe to say that no one of the Dunn family had the opportunity again that day to get into mischief. Each girl made herself responsible for a child, and watched it with a hawk's alertness, though not with a hawk's motive. "We've let them steal flowers, and get stung by bees, and then pretty nearly drowned," Amy remarked. "And for one day that's enough," a sentiment received without any dissenting voice.
But in spite of the drawbacks of the day and the fact that Isabel was left behind, the small Dunns were enthusiastic over the picnic. "Be you goin' to take us again some day, Miss Peggy?" little Johnny asked, as he hugged his armful of flowers closer, and smiled at her over the heads of the blossoms.
"I don't know," Peggy answered with a gasp. "I'll have to wait to get thoroughly over this, before I'll be able to make up my mind."
CHAPTER XXI
AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR
The papers Monday evening contained an account of a heroic rescue. There was a fancy sketch of a young woman diving from the deck of a pleasure yacht to save a child who with uplifted arms was drowning in the most dramatic manner imaginable. Elaine saw the sketch over the shoulder of the man who occupied the seat in front of her in the street car, and it was not till she reached home that she discovered that the theatrical young heroine was supposed to represent herself.
Along the Terrace they had found it out long before and each of the girls had made a beeline for the Marshall home with a paper under her arm. Peggy was the first arrival, with Amy a close second, while Ruth and Priscilla reached the door at the same minute. What with the rustling of papers, and the chorus of voices all explaining at once, Mrs. Marshall conceived the idea that something dreadful had happened, and it was necessary to produce the smelling-salts before she was equal to hearing the account.
The story had been written up with high regard for picturesqueness. The Dunn family had multiplied into a car-load of ragged children and the five Terrace girls had become wealthy young women who devoted a large share of their leisure to philanthropy. Upon Elaine, as the heroine of the occasion, adjectives were lavished with the generosity characteristic of newspaper reporters when they start out to be complimentary. Mrs. Marshall gradually lost her look of apprehension as she listened, and her face took on a motherly pride, which obliterated, for the time, its habitual expression of fretful weakness.
When Elaine arrived there was a rush in her direction. Four newspapers were shaken in her face. Four voices, each uplifted in the laudable effort to drown out the other three, read the most thrilling of the head-lines. Elaine stared incredulously at the heroine with the dishevelled hair, on the point of plunging from the deck of the yacht into tossing waves below. At last the truth dawned upon her.
"You don't mean, girls," she gasped, "you can't mean that it is intended for--me. O, it can't be possible."
In chorus four voices read, "The heroine of the occasion is Miss Elaine Marshall, 2618 Friendly Terrace." Further disclosures were checked by Elaine's putting her hands over her ears.
"All that in the paper about me? How perfectly dreadful! How in the world could they have found out about it?"
Ruth looked a little guilty. On her arrival home Saturday night, she had painted Elaine's exploit in glowing colors, and Graham's friend, Jack Rynson, was a reporter on theStar. Fortunately Elaine did not notice the incriminating color in Ruth's cheeks, and Peggy was saying consolingly, "Why, I think it's splendid. Just listen, Elaine! 'Seeing the peril of the child, the intrepid young woman, with a magnificent disregard for her own peril--'"
"Please," implored Elaine, her cheeks flaming. "I feel like a hypocrite, when I look at that yacht and those foaming waves, and think of that ridiculous old dug-out and the smooth little pond. Heroine! It's the most absurd thing I ever heard of."
But though Elaine protested, the fact remains that there are more unpleasant things than to be overpraised for what one has done. Her mother's air of radiant pride, the satisfaction the other girls took in the highly decorated account of the exploit, even the reporter's superfluous adjectives were not without their agreeable side. When the departure of the girls with the rustling newspapers left the house to its customary quiet, Elaine was aware of an inconsistent, and thoroughly inexplicable impression that something very pleasant had happened.
The peremptory ringing of the telephone bell interrupted Elaine's supper. Mrs. Marshall and Grace listened to the following one-sided conversation.
"Yes, yes, it's the same one."
"Why, I didn't know."
"O, it was dreadfully exaggerated. It really wasn't anything."
"No indeed. I feel as well as ever."
"She's very well, thank you, and Grace too."
"I'm sure we're glad to know our friends haven't forgotten us."
"O, we'd be so pleased to see you any time. O, thank you, very much. Good night."
When she had hung up the receiver she turned a luminous face upon her family. "What do you think," she cried tremulously. "That was Mrs. Winthrop."
"Not Mrs. Littleton Winthrop!" Mrs. Marshall set down her tea-cup, her hand shaking.
"Yes. She had read that ridiculous account in the paper, and she said the nicest things. And she and Vivian are coming to see us very soon. O, dear, I'm too excited to eat."
But the excitements of the evening were not over by any means. Shortly after eight o'clock, a motor coughed outside the door. There was a sound of feet on the walk and then a ring at the bell which somehow suggested that somebody who knew exactly what he wanted had his finger on the button.
Elaine opened the door, for enough of Grace's shrinking remained so that she found that simple office difficult. A plump, red-cheeked gentleman, who looked rather like an understudy for Santa Claus, greeted her with something more than cordiality.
"Elaine Marshall! Well, upon my word! You've grown almost out of knowledge." He put his hand upon her shoulder and gave her a smacking kiss on the cheek nearest him. "That's for the heroine," he said. "Mother in? And Grace? Good. First rate."
He had his arm about the girl's shoulder when he walked into the living-room, where Mrs. Marshall and Grace had sprung to their feet at the sound of his voice, and he held Elaine firmly while he shook hands with the others. Then he seated himself, stroking his snowy beard, and looking about him with eyes that twinkled serenely. He looked more like Santa Claus than ever.
"Look here," he said. "I'm not going to scold. That isn't my way. But for you to hide yourselves away from your friends isn't a square deal, you know. I could say considerable on the subject if I were that sort of a man. But as long as our little heroine here--"
"Little!" cried Elaine, her indignation over the adjective eclipsing for the time being her modest reluctance to accept the noun.
"Has given me the clue to your whereabouts," continued the visitor, ignoring the interruption. "We'll let bygones be bygones."
The talk turned to less delicate topics. But presently the caller, who gave increasing evidence of being a man who knew his own mind, turned on Grace with a question.
"Given up the idea of finishing your college course?"
"O, yes, Mr. Clement."
"Why?"
Grace hesitated. "If there were no other reason," she said at last, in a low voice, "the question of expense would settle it."
"That's what I fancied. Suppose you start in next fall, and send your bill to me."
"But, Mr. Clement--"
"It's good business sense, Grace. A thing half done is undone, and that's all you can say. Go ahead and get your education. Fit yourself for the work you like, and the work you want to do."
"But, Mr. Clement, I wouldn't think of accepting--"
"Stop right there, my dear. You're going to talk nonsense about being under obligations and that sort of thing. Your father and I were friends in our boyhood and it was the sort of friendship that stood by in a rough sea. More than once your father has come to my help when his name on my note was all that stood between me and bankruptcy." Santa Claus took out his handkerchief and blew his nose violently. "And after that if his daughter had a silly pride which wouldn't allow her to accept my help in making as much of herself as possible, I should be driven to conclude that she wasn't worthy the name she bears."
Elaine looked at her sister furtively, and something she saw in Grace's face made her heart flutter with a glad expectancy so keen as to be almost pain. Grace's brow was knit, and her face was pale, visible signs of an inner battle. Elaine breathed hard, guessing the tremendous importance of the struggle, and the significance of victory.
"I've grounds for being very angry," Mr. Clement went on with his whimsical smile. "When the three of you disappeared without a word or sign, I was hurt, and many of your friends felt as I did. I tried to make myself think that you would write me soon, but the weeks and months went by, and not a line from any of you. I had a right to be angry, and I was. However, I'm not a man to continue bringing up old scores. We'll call it square, Grace, if you'll close with my offer. What do you say? Is it a bargain?"
His compelling eyes were on her. For a moment he looked less like Santa Claus than some old viking, fearless of tempestuous seas, accustomed to conquest. As Grace's troubled gaze met his a curious change was apparent in her face, as if a spark of his resolution had fired hers.
"I'll--I'll do it, Mr. Clement," she faltered, and checked herself quickly, as if frightened by the rashness of her own promise. But Mr. Clement gave her no time for wavering.
"Done!" he cried, and catching the frail hand in his he shook it heartily. "And this spring and summer devote yourself to getting a little color, and putting a few pounds of flesh wherever you need them most. If you're not careful, this little sister of yours will be putting on airs, and ordering you about just because she's the biggest."
It was not early when Mr. Clement left, but, in spite of the lateness of the hour, Elaine yielded to an overwhelming desire to see Peggy. It was to Peggy alone that she had confided her great unhappiness, and it seemed to her that she could not sleep unless Peggy had heard the good news, the wonderful sequel to the incident which had made the close of the previous week eventful.
Elaine framed some excuse for a late call on Peggy which she herself had forgotten as soon as the door shut behind her, and made her way across the dewy grass. Overhead the stars twinkled in friendly fashion. The splendid winter constellations had given place to the less showy pageant of the summer, but it flashed across Elaine's mind that she had never before dreamed there were so many stars. The sky seemed golden with them. Peggy, upstairs in her own room, struggling with an essay due the end of the week, looked up amazed at an Elaine to whom she had never been introduced. For the new stars which Elaine had seen flashing in the sky, were only reflected from her shining eyes. Her radiant face prepared Peggy for the best news that could be spoken.
"O, Peggy! What do you think? Grace is going back to college."
"To college!" Peggy's sympathy was never of the half-hearted sort. Now the two words fairly tinkled as she spoke them, as if Elaine had announced some tremendous good fortune which had befallen Peggy herself.
"An old friend of papa's, Mr. Clement, is going to send her. And, O, Peggy, another old friend, Mrs. Winthrop, called up while we were eating supper. She had seen that account in the paper and was so sweet about it. I'm afraid that perhaps we weren't just fair to the people we used to know. Perhaps they were better friends than we thought."
"Of course," cried Peggy. "People are almost always better than you think. The things that seem horrid can generally be explained."
"And isn't it funny!" Elaine found in a burst of laughter the relief that might as easily have come through tears. "All this wouldn't have happened, if it hadn't been for those blessed Dunns."
Peggy jumped, as if the name had touched a nerve. "O, I've just been aching to tell you that Isabel was going to stay."
"To stay?"
"Jimmy came over and told me just before supper. That farmer's wife came in bright and early this morning. She wanted to keep Isabel, and Jimmy said his mother was willing, because it would be one less to take care of. There's a sad side to it," Peggy concluded, her bright face falling, "to think that the mother of any child would give her up as easy as that, but I can't help being glad that little Isabel will grow up with grass and flowers around her, and plenty to eat, and all the rest of the things they don't have on Glen Echo Avenue."
Elaine had risen to go. "I feel like staying and talking all night but I must get to bed and be ready for my work to-morrow. Yes, indeed. I'm awfully glad about little Isabel. It seems as if everything was turning out right for everybody."
"It's a pretty good world after all," smiled Peggy, voicing a favorite theory.
The words rang in Elaine's ears as again she sped across the dewy clover under the spangled sky. "Of course," she told herself. "How could it help being a good world as long as it has such people as Peggy Raymond in it?"
THE END.