The others exchanged dubious glances. "Always room for one more, I suppose," Priscilla said at last.
"And she looks like such a sweet girl, too," Peggy continued, as the shabby hack rumbled off. "She had such a nice way of helping her mother--that is, I suppose it's her mother."
Amy coughed in an embarrassed fashion, and Ruth said hastily, "We took her for you at first, Peggy. We were watching for your hack, you know, and hers came first."
"I imagine she must have thought us very cordial to strangers," Priscilla added, choking down a laugh, as she remembered the contemptuous indifference of the girl who had received a welcome intended for somebody else.
"I'm glad of that," said the innocent Peggy. "Because that may help them in making up their minds to come here. And I don't like to have a vacant house on the Terrace. It reminds me of a child shedding its first teeth. The more smiling and pleasant it looks, the more you notice that something is missing."
From across the street somebody whistled, a rather peculiar whistle, long and piercing. Ruth jumped to her feet.
"It's Graham," she said. "What is he doing home at this time in the morning? O, I wonder if luncheon really can be ready?"
"Of course it can," Amy cried tragically. "I'm nearly starved. I couldn't eat any breakfast this morning, I was so excited because Peggy was coming."
"You'll be over this afternoon, won't you, Peggy?" Priscilla asked as she rose to go, and her face fell slightly as Peggy answered, "Why, of course. I'll run in to see all of you." It was just a little hard for Priscilla to remember that her claim on Peggy was in no sense superior to that of the other girls. She was one of the people who liked to be first, and, though generous enough with her other possessions, she found it hard to share her friend. Yet there were moments when Priscilla acknowledged to herself that a fraction of Peggy's affection was worth more than the undivided devotion other girls had given her in the fervid friendships which, in a few weeks or months at the outside, had burned themselves out.
Peggy was as good as her word. But when she crossed the street that afternoon, on her way to Priscilla's, she noticed that the sign "To Rent" had disappeared from the window of the house next door. "That means new neighbors, certain sure," thought Peggy hopefully. Nor did she guess what a new element her prospective neighbors were to introduce into the cheerful atmosphere of Friendly Terrace.