“Oh I see,” said Jessie, “you’re as mad about her as some of the other people who come in contact with her; but I can tell you every one doesn’t agree with you. This is Saturday, and I was able to have a long chat with that nice girl, Kitty Merrydew, and she says that Peggy is a horribly deceitful girl, that there’s no doubt whatever that her leg was broken by the pony; but just to get her schoolfellows into a scrape she managed matters in such a knowing way that the fault was supposed to rest on some of their devoted heads. Poor Kitty is in a horrible way about it, because she says Mrs. Fleming, beyond doubt, suspects her. Of course, she’s going to try for the prize; naturally—I should think so, indeed—it’s most important for poor Kitty to get it, for she’s anything but well off; but she says it’s most painful the way Mrs. Fleming doubts her, and that any one with eyes in her head can detect the reason—it’s Peggy. Peggy declares that the pony did not kick her, when she knew perfectly well that it did. Oh, I’m sick of her, I really am! And to have her next door to us again, it’s quite intolerable! I told that dear little Kitty pretty straight out what my views were, and I think I comforted her a good bit. I’m going to ask mother if Kitty may come and stay with us during the holidays. We can’t see much of her at school. She would like to come, because she will be close to her friends, the Dodds, who will probably ask her to go to them after she has been with us for a week or so. Oh dear, oh dear, it’s Kitty who ought to be in the Upper School, not that horrid Peggy!”
It was just at that moment that a rustling sound was heard in the room next to where the two Wyndham girls slept. It was, as has been stated, the rule in the Upper School for each girl to have a bedroom to herself; but in the case of sisters this was sometimes altered, and Jessie and Molly, in consequence, had a large and lovely room which they shared together. The room next to theirs had not been used yet during the present term; it was, therefore, with some astonishment that the Wyndhams now listened to this slight rustle. Was it possible that Peggy had been given the room next to them, and that she was in it, and that she had overheard some of their remarks? The door between the two rooms was a little ajar. How had this come about?
Molly sank down on her chair, feeling cold and faint.
“Oh Jess,” she whispered, “can she be there, and could she have overheard? Oh Jess, the poor, dear little thing! you were speaking so unkindly of her.”
“Hush, nonsense!” said Jessie; “if she did hear, it served her right for listening; eavesdroppers never hear good of themselves.” But she spoke in a faltering voice, for even she did not want to be too unkind.
“I feel queer,” said Molly; “you forget how fond father is of her, and how he loved her father; and even I didn’t know, until Mrs. Fleming mentioned it the other day, that Peggy’s father was a V. C. Oh dear, I think somehow she has inherited part of his gallant spirit.”
“Nonsense, nonsense!” said Jessie; “if you go on praising her I shall positively hate her.”
“Jess, darling, do be kind! I do wonder who was rustling in the other room. Shall we knock and find out?”
“Of course not, we are not allowed to go into each other’s bedrooms.”
Meanwhile all sound in the next room had ceased, for the simple reason that the girl who had been given that room as her bedroom had left the apartment. She had stood for a few minutes like one stunned, listening when she ought not to listen, drinking in knowledge which ought never to have reached her. Oh, oh, was it in that way they thought of her? She had told a lie to save the pony, she had—what had she not done? At least one thing was quite clear to the poor child. She had no right to be in the Upper School; dear, kind, sweet Mrs. Fleming had put her there in order to make her happy; but she must not stay, of course she must not stay. Jessie was right: she was an ignorant, silly girl, and Kitty ought to be in the Upper School, not poor, despised Peggy Desmond. Tears brimmed into those sapphire-blue eyes and rolled down her cheeks. She was not at all strong yet; her illness had weakened her considerably. In hospital all had been delightful—the pretty flowers, the nice story-books, the company of little Elisabeth and of Chloe, who was so funny and agreeable, and made her laugh, and had as much colour in her speech as the Irish had in their speech. And then Mrs. Fleming had come to her night after night and talked to her, much as an angel might talk, and she had listened and resolved to do anything on earth to please one so gracious and so kind. She would drop for her sake the language of colour and take up the language of cold neutrality, that gray tongue which sufficed for a gray race; but she would do it to please her mistress; she would do anything for her.