Peggy Stewart at School

by Gabrielle E. Jackson

"Honey, smoothe them out, please, and, remember that what I am about to say to you is said because Peggy's and Polly's friends are mine and I love them. Yes, and wish them to learn to love me if possible. Nothing is dearer to me than my young people and I long to see all that is best and finest developed in them. You have come to me as a guest, dear, but you have also come to me as my foster-daughter pro tem, and as such, claim my affectionate interest in your well-being. Mother and daughter are precious names."

There was a slight pause, in which Juno gave an impatient toss of her handsome head and asked in a bitterly ironical voice:

"Are they? I am afraid I'm not very well prepared to judge."

Mrs. Harold looked keenly at the girl, a light beginning to dawn upon her, though she had heard little of Juno's history.

"Dear heart, forgive me if I wounded you. It was unintentional. I know nothing of earlier experiences, you know. You are just Polly's friend to me. Perhaps some day, if you can learn to love and trust me, you will let me understand why I have wounded. That is for another time and season. Just now we have but a few moments in which to 'get near' each other, as my boys would say, and I am going to make a request which may displease you. My little girl, will you accept some suggestions regarding your toilet?"

"I dare say you think it is too grown-up for me. I know I'm not supposed to wear a low gown or a train."

"I'm afraid I should be tempted to say the gown had been sent to you before it had grown-up enough," smiled Mrs. Harold. "And certainly some of its accessories must have been overlooked or forgotten altogether."

"Why, nobody wears anything but tights under a ball gown nowadays. How would it fit with skirts all bunched up under it? As to the neck, it is no lower than one sees at the opera at home. I know a dozen people who wear gowns made in exactly the same way, and Madam Marie would expire if I did not follow her dictates—why, she would never do a bit more work for me."

"Then I beg of you, outrage the lady's ideas forthwith, for—" Mrs. Harold laid her hand upon Juno's—"no dressmaker living should have the power to place a refined, modest little girl in a false position, or lower her womanly standards and ideals. Not only hers, dear, but what is vastly more far-reaching, the ideals of the boys and men with whom she is thrown. You are too young to fully appreciate this; you could hardly interpret some of the comments which are sure to be made upon the ballroom floor from those who are somewhat lacking in finer feeling; nor can you gauge the influence a truly modest girl—I do not mean an ignorantly prudish one, for a limited knowledge of the facts of life is a dangerous thing—has over such lads as you meet."

"You have a beautiful hand, dear," continued Mrs. Harold, taking Juno's tapering, perfectly manicured fingers in hers. "It is faultless. Make it as strong as faultless, for remember—nothing has greater power figuratively. You hold more in this pretty hand than equal franchise can ever confer upon you. See that right now you help to make the world purer—your sisters who would have the ballot are using this crying need as their strongest argument—by avoiding in word or deed anything which can dethrone you in the esteem of the other sex, whether young or mature, for you can never know how far-reaching it will prove. You think I am too sweeping in my assertion? That you never have and never could do anything to invite criticism? Dear heart, not intentionally, I know, but in the very fact that you are innocent of the influence which—say such a gown as you are now wearing, for an illustration—may have, lies the harm you do. If you fully understand you would sooner go to the hop tonight gowned in sackcloth; of this I am certain."