Because it was Peggy, and because the idea was new, and because the candy was just ready to eat now, and very tempting, the good-natured freshmen light-heartedly promised to try her plan—and to follow it faithfully until it had had time to show either some result—or no result at all.
This was the beginning of an attitude of mind that later became habitual with that group of freshmen. It wasn’t many weeks after this anti-fault-finding party in Peggy’s room that, if a first-year girl heard that another lived in Ambler House, she was filled with wistful envy; for the good times the Amblerites had, their gay and loyal friendship became matters of common college discussion.
Myra Whitewell would not have worked into the system if she could have helped it. But the others, very much in earnest under the stimulus of Peggy’s sunny example, refused to give heed to her grouches, or to be hurt at her snubs,—and they never failed to speak well of her outside, so that this praise of theirs came to her ears at last, and filled her heart with warmth in spite of herself, and she could not do less than give them her friendship—yes, and even her warped and selfish love,—in the end.
There was candy enough left after the spread that night for each freshman to take a plateful to her particular junior or senior friend.
As they were leaving, their faces glowing with appreciation of the pleasant evening they had just spent, and in anticipation of the junior’s or senior’s delight at their offering, Doris Winterbean drew Peggy aside and whispered in her ear:
“Well, I don’t know, Pegkins, it’s rather wonderful, but I’ve tried your plan ever since you spoke of it and it’s had an uncanny effect. Why, do you know, I already see the greatest difference in that Lilian girl? Honestly! Peggy, her hair looks pretty to me now, and I thought it was horrid last night. And her face and manner—she just seemed as happy and confident as anybody, instead of so shy and uncomfortable. It’s—magic, Peggy, and you may not believe me, but I really do see her altogether differently.”
And Peggy burst out into a little laugh of enjoyment, and her eyes followed Lilian with pride. But she did not think it was necessary to disabuse the mind of Lilian’s new admirer by telling her that the “magic” had a very material foundation.
[CHAPTER VIII—INDIAN SUMMER]
Glory lay over the whole college world.
The sun blazed upon an earth more beautiful than Peggy and Katherine ever remembered to have seen it. The woods, when the two took their walks, were as red with burnished leaves as if they had been on fire.