Peggy murmured her good-by and flew back upstairs to tell the wonderful news to Katherine—that he was, that he was, that he WAS!
“I can hardly wait to tell Mr. Huntington,” cried Katherine, “can you?”
“Oh,” said Peggy doubtfully, “I don’t think we have quite enough to go on yet to tell him about it, do you? We think it is true but, after all, we have only the word of that crazy black velvet fortune teller. His middle name begins with H, but that doesn’t tell us what it is, it might not be—be—that, you know, after all.”
“Huntington,” smiled Katherine. “You are afraid to say Huntington.”
“I’m not. Huntington, Huntington, Huntington!”
And then as if it had been the magic signal for calling up the real Mr. Huntington on the spot, one of the maids brought up his card at the moment and said that he was awaiting the young ladies in the drawing-room.
“It will be hard not to tell him,” sighed Peggy longingly. “I’d like to have him know that there was just a gleam of hope, anyway, you know, of finding—”
“Let’s be careful, because there’d just be somebody else disappointed besides us if it didn’t come out right. Peggy, sure as I am that we’re on the right—what do you call it—scent—nevertheless, we must remember that almost every man in college plays a mandolin—at least half do,—and H. stands for so many names: Hill, and Hough, and Hail, and, oh, dozens and hundreds and for all I know thousands. No, it isn’t a clear case yet, so don’t raise that poor old man’s hopes.”
Down the stairs they went sedately, arm in arm. Mr. Huntington had visited them at the school several times since their return from Katherine’s home. Sometimes he called upon as many of the entire sixty girls as were about, but more often he asked simply for Peggy and Katherine.
“I’m awfully glad to see you, Mr. Huntington,” Peggy cried, running impulsively forward, “especially to-day.”