"If you young ladies should try the dollar readings," observed the fortune teller, pocketing the coin, "you would find them much more satisfactory. I describe your personal characters fully, showing you the weaknesses against which you should guard, and also the traits which should characterize your life partner. Kindly mention me to your friends. Good afternoon."
Once outside, the two stood looking at each other. "Well, Amy Lassell," Peggy cried, "if you're not convinced now that that woman is a thorough-going, outrageous old fraud, I'll wash my hands of you."
Amy had hardly recovered from her daze. "But why did she do it?" she persisted.
"Don't ask me. Though I think I could make a fair guess. You said yourself that you laughed all the time she was telling Blanche's fortune. I suppose she thought you were making fun of her art or science, or whatever she calls it, and she wanted to get even."
Amy straightened herself and drew a long breath, like one who lays down an intolerable burden. The face she turned on her friend was radiant.
"Peggy," she cried joyously, "let's go down to Bird's--I don't care if I do look like a fright--and get a nut sundae."
CHAPTER XX
AN EVENTFUL PICNIC
For some time Peggy had been waiting anxiously for warm weather. Not that Peggy had any quarrel with the winter months. Her vigorous constitution responded joyfully to the challenge of the cold. When the snow "crunched" under her elastic tread, and the air was full of frost crystals, and the wind whistled boisterously, and played tricks with people's hats and umbrellas, then Peggy's eyes were brightest and the blood in her veins raced most jubilantly.
Peggy's reasons for being impatient for spring's return were not personal ones. They concerned the Dunn family. Various remarks let fall by Estelle, Isabel and the others, had indicated such incredible ignorance of the country, that at first Peggy could not believe that it was not assumed. Gradually, however, she had reached the conclusion that these children, living within a few miles of grass-covered acres and groves of trees, knew as little of either as young Hottentots might be supposed to know of the North Pole.