Not for her—oh, not for her, this one desirable thing of all the world that the others were to have! Of course, she had wickedly been saved from a storm—but it seemed to her now very unjust that this should stand in her way, now especially when the snow was all gone and there was nothing left to remind her of how grateful she ought to be for that past favor of fortune. Was getting saved and being served to hot chocolate such a crime, then? Hadn’t any other girl ever had the same experience? Well, if she hadn’t, Peggy pitied her rather than envied her, she knew that. Oh, Mrs. Forest, what a narrow-minded woman she was. Just as if she had been born a hundred years old as she was now and had never known any girlhood, Peggy mused. Oh, Annapolis, Annapolis! Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear!
Nothing would ever make up—nothing ever or ever! If she could only go and look on, even, she would be satisfied. Must she see the others fluffing up their ruffles and pinning on their sashes and starting off with bobbing rose-buds at their waists while she remained behind, her nose pressed flat to the window, to see them off and the tears coursing sadly down her face? It was a heartbreaking picture and Peggy threw herself on the bed and cried over it until the thought came to her that if she kept this up she would go through the grief of it all many times before it actually came to her to bear it, and perhaps for the occasion itself there would be no tears left.
She wiped her eyes and saw that they were not, after all, so very red, and no permanent wrinkles had been made in her face from screwing it up so hard. She decided that she’d just pretend she was going instead of continually dwelling on the fact that she wasn’t. She got out her lovely little frock her aunt had recently sent her to be her best through the spring term. It was a deep, sweet pink—Peggy called it her candy dress—and tenderly she smoothed the dainty chiffon tunic over the crisp taffeta slip. There is a balm just in the touch of pretty clothes to dry the tears of any girl or woman unless her grief is very deep. Peggy felt the color stealing back into her cheeks, and her eyes were a-shine with admiration. The very way the dress fell, all fairy-like and light, from her fingers when she lifted away her hand, the glow that the silk gave back, the cool feeling of the silver bead fringe that went around the sleeves,—Peggy would have had to be far less susceptible to the lure of feminine finery than she was if she had not caught her breath with pure joy in the possession of such a gown.
There are pinks and pinks, some beautiful shades and others not so lovely. But silk stockings will often take the loveliest pink of all, and Peggy’s were delicately tinted and gleamy and did justice to the dress with which they were to be worn. Her little slippers had high heels, and how she reveled in them! After the flat heels they were obliged to wear every day at Andrews the dignified height and the curving grace of these were a rest and a delight to the eye. They were all of pink satin, just a shade deeper than the stockings, and were decorated with tiny handwrought gold buckles that glinted and flashed in the light like a cluster of yellow diamonds.
“Oh, tra, la,” sang Peggy, handling them, “oh, tra, la.”
And her pleasure in living rushed back full force, for, after all, these things were hers and even if there was to be no Annapolis, she would have the satisfaction of knowing how she might have looked if she could have gone.
That night, when the girls discussed every detail of the trip, even to the train they were to take and what they were to wear as traveling suits, Peggy found that she was able to join in without tears and without bitterness and help them make their plans perfect. The girls were overwhelmed by the generosity of her attitude, and marveled at her cheerful spirit.
“There’s one thing, Peggy,” said Helen Remington across the table, “if you were going there wouldn’t be a chance for the rest of us. There’d just be a general stampede in your direction and we’d look on alone and unnoticed.”
The other girls nodded. Peggy thought of the dear pink dress and those wondrous slippers, and in the egotism of her youth she thought it might be so, after all.
It was one day off, at last. Even Mrs. Forest was practicing a peaches-and-cream, prunes-and-prisms, butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth manner for the occasion. She was very kind to all the girls, and was careful not to hurt the feelings of the few culprits who had to stay at home, by references in their presence to the good times the others expected.