CHAPTER VI
ELAINE HAS VISITORS
It was Priscilla who, on the way home from school the next day, suggested stopping to see if Elaine had quite recovered from the effects of the Hallowe'en party. She made the remark to Peggy, but Amy, who with Ruth was walking just behind the others, took it on herself to answer.
"Yes, that was just what I was thinking. It wouldn't be any more than neighborly after her fright, and all the rest of it."
Priscilla choked down an exasperated sigh. She said to herself it was strange Amy couldn't realize that there might be occasions when one wanted Peggy to one's self. At the same time it was not altogether Amy's obtuseness which was responsible for the difficulty of monopolizing Peggy's society. Peggy herself, with her trick of liking everybody, and expecting all her friends to like one another, made monopoly difficult, if not impossible.
Accordingly four girls, instead of two, turned in at the Marshall cottage. The chatter of voices on the porch told Elaine that she had visitors and she came to the door in something of a flutter, for, with all her air of self-sufficiency, Elaine was shy at heart, as is often the case with people who hold their acquaintances at arms' length. She was uncertain, as she admitted the quartet, whether or not to ask them into the parlor, but Peggy, who had caught sight of Mrs. Marshall seated in great state in the living-room, and apparently absorbed in the contemplation of a steel-engraving over the mantel, settled the question by bearing down upon the engrossed lady and giving her a hearty greeting.
Mrs. Marshall welcomed her daughter's visitors with an air nicely balanced between cordiality and condescension. Nearly everything that Mrs. Marshall said and did conveyed the impression that she had seen better days, and that she would not submit to being judged by her present environment. Peggy, who had a perfect mania for cheering people, found Mrs. Marshall's air of melancholy a perpetual challenge, and, when Mrs. Marshall gave her a chance, she occasionally succeeded in bringing a smile to that lady's severe countenance, much to her own delight, and to Mrs. Marshall's astonishment.
She dropped into a chair next to Elaine's mother, and addressed her as soon as the introductions were over. "I hope you weren't lonely last evening, Mrs. Marshall, with Elaine away."
"I am used to loneliness, Miss Margaret," Mrs. Marshall returned pensively. "It is one of the many hard things to which I am now forced to accustom myself. When I was Elaine's age--"
Peggy resigned herself to listen to a story of past glories while the other girls plunged into a discussion of the party. "What a fright we all had when you screamed!" Amy laughed. "But, of course, it was worse for you than for anybody else. Did you feel all right this morning?"