Again the line dropped forward with one motion; and again our poor Peggy fell on her nose. This time the nose protested in its way, and bled; great crimson drops fell on the white plumage of the Snowy Owl. Almost crying with distress and mortification, Peggy felt for her handkerchief. Alas! she was not used to trousers, and no pocket could she find, though there was one, and her handkerchief was in it. What should she do? She was just about to make a bolt for the stairs, when a handkerchief was thrust into her hand. She clapped it to her suffering nose, and looked gratefully at her left-hand neighbour in the ranks. The girl nodded slightly, and said, "All serene! better ask leave to retire. Hold arms over head, stop it!" She was a slender girl, with a pensive face and melancholy blue eyes. Her hair was plainly parted, Madonna-fashion, and there was something remote and old-world about her whole look and air.
"Oh, thank you!" murmured poor Peggy. "You're awfully kind!" She hoped the tiresome bleeding would stop on the instant, but it did not; she was obliged to ask leave to go down-stairs; and receiving it, dashed down headlong, and cannoned violently against Vivia Varnham, who had gone down for something she had forgotten.
"Oh, I beg your pardon!" gasped Peggy. "I'm—awfully clumsy—"
"I think you are!" said the other, with a flash of her hazel eyes. "Perhaps you'll let me pass now, please, before you make another exhibition of yourself." She went on, with a scornful toss of her head.
Poor Peggy! her tears flowed fast over the friendly handkerchief. "I wish I was dead!" she sobbed. "I wish I had never come to this horrid, odious place, where everybody is so hateful. And I can't hold up my arms when I have to hold this to my nose all the time."
"Quite so!" said a quiet voice behind her. The sad-looking girl took her hands and held them straight up in one of her own, the other keeping the handkerchief in position. No word was spoken, but in five minutes the bleeding was stopped.
"Basin—water!" said the stranger. "Don't mention it!" as Peggy tried to falter her thanks. And she was gone.
Peggy waited till she felt sure of herself and her nose. Then she spoke severely to herself, and asked what Uncle John would say to such behaviour. "Everybody isn't hateful!" she said. "And anyhow, there are some things there that I can do, if I haven't learned this trick. I won't give up till I've gone up that rope."
Her eye had been caught by a stout rope dangling from the ceiling. This was in her own line, and she felt that if she could redeem herself in her own eyes, she should not care so much about all those other laughing eyes. And yet, perhaps she thought more about those eyes than she was aware of, for our Peggy was very human.
This time fortune favoured her. As she emerged from the lower regions, a girl was just trying to climb the rope; in fact, there were three ropes hanging side by side, and the climbing of them was part of the regular exercise. She sought Bertha, who was most sympathetic, not having been near enough to help Peggy.