"I wish I knew what ailed that girl," thought Peggy, studying Priscilla's changed countenance with a heart-sick concern. "She looks years older than she did six months ago, and I can't make out whether she's sick or just unhappy. And the worst of it is that one can't get a thing out of her."
But in this particular instance Peggy was to have no reason to complain of Priscilla's reticence. As Priscilla raised her heavy eyes and saw her friend's face at the window, her own face brightened and she quickened her steps. Peggy hurried to the door, and flung it open with an unreasonable hope that this interview would end the mystery which had baffled her for so long. But the perplexity Priscilla had come to confide was too recent to explain her worried air through the months past. She was hardly in the house before she burst out, "Peggy, I'm in an awful pickle."
"What's the matter? Can I help!"
"I wondered if you would lend me Sally."
"Sally?" repeated Peggy in accents of astonishment. For the maid-of-all-work in the Raymond household was a possession of which few people were envious. Whether Sally was really weak minded was a question on which a difference of opinion was possible, but there was no possible doubt of her talent for doing the wrong thing at the right time or else, vice versa, the right thing at the wrong time. Her one redeeming feature was her amiability, but as this frequently took a conversational turn, it was not without its drawbacks. That any of her friends could want to borrow Sally, or that any household but their own would put up with the blundering, good-natured apology for a domestic servant, had never entered Peggy's head.
"Sally," she repeated, still in a tone of mystification. "Of course you can have her if you want her, but whatever it is, she'll do it wrong."
"I suppose she could open the door for a caller, couldn't she?"
"Why, she can open a door, as a rule, but just now she's got a tooth-ache, and her head is tied up in a red flannel, so unless the callers are people of strong nerves, they may be startled."
"O dear!" Priscilla's acceptance of this bit of information was so suggestive of tragedy that Peggy was more puzzled than ever. "Who is the caller?" she demanded. "And why in the world do you want Sally?"
"Well, it's quite a story, Peggy. You know Mother's away this week and Martha's having her vacation, and Father and I are taking our meals at the Lindsays. And last evening Horace Hitchcock called, and it seems that an aunt of his is in town."