CHAPTER XV
PRISCILLA’S LOOKING-GLASS
“In less than twenty-four hours Elaine will be here.”
“You’ve been saying that for a week,” Priscilla commented tartly. The two girls had the porch to themselves, Priscilla stretched her lazy length in the hammock, while Peggy had curled herself into the biggest chair in a position which only a kitten or a school girl could by any possibility consider comfortable. Life at Dolittle Cottage was not favorable to tête-à-têtes, and Priscilla found ground for a grievance in the fact that on one of the rare occasions when they were alone together, Peggy should occupy the time in discussing the approaching visit of another friend. Though Priscilla had been making a gallant fight against her besetting weakness, it occasionally took her off her guard.
“If I’ve been saying that for a week,” observed Peggy with unruffled good nature, “I’ve been talking nonsense. For this is the first day it’s been true.”
“Don’t be silly, Peggy. You know perfectly well what I mean. For a week you haven’t been able to talk of anything but Elaine’s coming.”
Peggy made no reply. There was a critical note in the accusation which she found vaguely irritating, and it seemed to her the wisest course to let the matter drop where it was. But Priscilla was in the unreasonable mood when even silence is sufficient ground for resentment.
“Dear me, Peggy, I didn’t mean to reduce you to absolute dumbness. By all means talk of Elaine, if that’s the only topic of interest.”
“See here, Priscilla!” Peggy straightened herself, an unwonted color in her cheeks. For all her sweetness of disposition, she had a temper of her own, and was perhaps no less lovable on that account. “I thought we’d settled this thing long ago. You know I’m fond of Elaine,” she went on steadily, “and after her hard year, I’m delighted that she can have an outing up here with the rest of us. It isn’t anything I’m ashamed of, and it isn’t anything you’ve a right to call me to account for. I don’t care any the less for you because I care for Elaine, too.”
There are few better tests of character than its response to frankness. A girl of another sort would have found in this straightforward speech additional cause for umbrage. Priscilla showed that her faults were only superficial after all, by her immediate surrender.
“Oh, Peggy,” she exclaimed, a choke in her voice. “You don’t need to tell me that. I don’t know what ails me sometimes. I should think you’d lose all patience with me.”