“Cassandra,” murmured Peggy. “We’re just having the Fall of Troy in Greek class now, Mr. Huntington, and Katherine is carried away by the idea of being a prophetess. It would be nice if we could see the future,” she added wistfully, “but I always feel as if I had more happiness in the present than I could really take care of,—and if I was always looking ahead to more—”
“You,” said Mr. Huntington, “yes, you would feel that way. Most people would say that the gift of prophecy was withheld from us in order that we might not see so much grief and hardship ahead of us that we would lose the incentive to go on.”
But Peggy was so far out of sympathy with that point of view that she laughed.
The early darkness of the winter afternoon began to deepen in the room and blur all the shadows together. The dancing firelight did its best to fight off the dusk, leaping up with spurting little flames and glowing fiercely red at its heart. But the purple and gray twilight deepened steadily into black everywhere except in the one bright corner of the room where the flames still kept guard.
“Well,” said Peggy, sighing, and untangling herself from the comfortable chair in which she had been curled, “time for us to go home, I suppose—oo—oo—out into all that cold after all this warmth! My hundred dollars, Mr. Huntington—I don’t know what I’ll do with it—” she puckered her brow thoughtfully, “I don’t know anyone else to give a party to so—”
“Buy a big fur coat with it, like some of the other girls wore,” advised the old man, “then you’ll never think about going out into the cold as anything but a pleasure.”
“Oh,—a fur coat!” cried Peggy, “why, mine—mine has just the mangiest bit of a fur collar, and I’ve been proud enough of that—wait, just wait till I get a wonderful young caracal!”
With their hands linked closely together in Peggy’s muff the two girls made their way down the walk, and at the street they turned back and waved cheerily to the silhouetted figure that still watched them against the glowing doorway of what had once been Gloomy House.
[CHAPTER VIII—CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS]
The days and weeks seemed to fly by after that, each one full of interest to Peggy, who liked Andrews better and better and was increasingly glad each hour that she had come. Through Mr. Huntington’s help she was able to do a great many delightful things for other people, and she took happy advantage of his warm interest in her projects.