“What? Didn’t mean to—child, are you telling me—?”
There was certainly nothing of the hangdog about Peggy.
She nodded.
“I was just as sorry as you are for a time,” she continued, “but you see it made them sing to me and I can’t be sorry about that, can I? Nobody could. It was so beautiful.”
She explained simply.
“I’m very sorry such a thing should have happened,” the principal said solemnly when the recital was over. “The other young ladies are going to see a performance of the ‘Blue Bird’ this afternoon, and this prevents your going. I cannot permit you to go, of course, after this, much as I regret it.”
Peggy turned away, a little twinge of disappointment in her heart. She had heard the girls discussing the matinée party for to-day, and she had never dreamed of not going with them. As she left the chapel Miss Carrol, the youngest teacher, timidly approached the principal.
“I am going to chaperone the girls to-day, am I not?” she asked.
“Yes, Miss Carrol.”
“I thought I’d venture to suggest that Peggy Parsons be forgiven this once—I don’t think she did anything so very terrible—and that she be allowed to come with us to the first party. Don’t you remember when you were away at school—how heartbreaking it was if you were shut out of anything, and how easily a fit of homesickness came on to blot out all the sunlight of the world? Don’t you remember—Mrs. Forest?”