CHAPTER XXI
A MISSING BRIDE
It was two days before Peggy's wedding, and in the front room downstairs Peggy was looking around complacently on her wedding presents. They were very much like the wedding presents of other prospective brides. A few were admirably suited to the needs of a young couple of moderate means, about to start house-keeping. Others would have been useful in the establishments of wealthy people who expected to do a great deal of entertaining. And there were still others whose use was problematical, anywhere and under any circumstances.
Peggy's mood, however, was far from critical. Each gift as it came had given her the keenest pleasure, and if it were impossible to find anything admirable in the article itself, she could always say, "How awfully kind of them to send it. Everybody's being perfectly dear to me." She approached every newly arrived package with the same feeling with which she had once taken up a bulging Christmas stocking.
The clock in the dining room, a pert little timepiece with a peremptory voice, struck three. It was characteristic of this particular clock always to strike the hour as if it were reminding somebody of something. On this occasion it reminded Peggy that she had an engagement with the dressmaker at half past three, and that she was to call for Ruth, who had promised to accompany her. As it was impossible to take along a crowd of girls to the dressmaker's rather cramped quarters, Peggy avoided hard feeling by inviting a different girl each day.
Peggy had hardly reached the top of the stairs when the bell rang, and Sally came rushing from the kitchen to answer it. The prospect of a wedding in the family had so excited Sally that she was even less responsible for her conduct than usual. Almost the only thing she could be trusted to do was to answer the door-bell, but as the bell rang very often, she succeeded in making herself rather useful. On this occasion a swarthy woman stood outside, and in a quick, parrot-like fashion said something Sally did not understand.
"You want to see Miss Peggy?" Sally demanded. Such wits as she possessed were not on duty, for ordinarily she would have recognized the stranger's errand, and sent her about her business. As the woman nodded, Sally at once admitted her, showing her into the room where the wedding presents stood about in picturesque confusion.
"Miss Peggy," shrieked Sally, forgetting for the moment the lesson impressed on her on innumerable occasions that she was not to save her steps by calling up the stairs, "Somebody to see you."
It was a minute or two before Peggy came down, and Sally had retreated to the kitchen in the meantime. Peggy who had naturally expected to see an acquaintance, was rather startled to be confronted by a dark-skinned woman with jet black eyes and an oily voice.
"Buy lace, lady? Very cheap: three inch wide up to nine inch. Very cheap!"