Her face, so bright a moment before, clouded so instantly with disappointment and mortification, that the experienced junior could hardly repress a smile.
"My dear! my dear!" she cried. "Do wait till I tell you. You can wear the Snowy's things. She hasn't come back yet, and you can wear them just as well as not till she comes."
"The Snowy?" repeated Peggy. She remembered vaguely that she had heard the name, but it meant nothing to her in her trouble.
"Yes, my chum, the Snowy Owl. I'm the Fluffy one, don't you remember? The Snowy is a bit taller than you, but that is no matter; you can wear them perfectly well, I tell you. Come along, and I'll get you into them."
Peggy hung back, protesting faintly against appropriating the clothes of a person she had never seen; but finally she yielded to Bertha's vigorous pulls, and followed her down a winding stair, into a narrow room filled with a hubbub of girls in every stage of dressing and undressing. Viola Vincent fluttered up to her (it is difficult to flutter in a gymnasium suit, and only Viola's supremely butterfly quality enabled her to do it), a charming vision of pale blue, with a profusion of tiny brass buttons twinkling wherever a button could be put.
"Here you are!" she cried, airily. "I haven't seen you for an age. I've been telling everybody about you, the V. V's vis-à-vis. It sounds so quaint, doesn't it? I adore quaintness. How do you like my new suit, Fluffy? Isn't it too cute for anything? This is the first time I've worn it; I think it is too perfectly sweet to live in, don't you?"
"I hope not!" said Bertha, laughing. "We should be sorry to have you pass away, Vanity, because your dress is too sweet."
"No, but really!" continued Viola, earnestly. "Do I exaggerate, Fluffy? Isn't it the sweetest thing you ever saw? I ask because I want to know, you know!"
Bertha's only reply was to pull her pink ear good-naturedly, and then dive head-foremost into a locker.
"You find the Fluffy quaint?" said Viola to Peggy. "Yes? she is quaint, but delicious! So is the Snowy! I simply could not exist without them; they are the guiding stars of the corridor, don't you know? What are you about, Fluffy? What are you doing with the Snowy's togs? She has not come back, no!" clasping her hands in ecstasy. "Don't tell me the Snowy has come back, Fluff!"