Emily Cortlandt had graduated from college the year before. She laid down her pencil, and looked very kindly at the distracted girl.
"I think you are not feeling well, Miss Montfort," she said. "Does your head ache?"
"Yes, ma'am," said Peggy. She could not have said another word; her whole strength was needed to keep back the flood of tears that was rising, rising.
"You need not stay through the lesson," Miss Cortlandt went on, and the sympathy in her voice only brought the flood higher and nearer.
"You can make up the lesson to me some other time. Now, you would better go and lie down for a little, and then take a turn in the fresh air. Miss Bangs, what was the date of Philip's first invasion?"
Peggy never knew how she got out of the class-room. She longed to give at least a grateful look at the kind soul who had saved her, but her eyes were already swimming in tears. She fled along the corridor, sobbing hysterically, blinded with tears, conscious of only one thing, the desperate resolve to get to her room, before she broke down altogether. Flying thus around a corner, she rushed headlong into a group of girls who were gathered around something, she could not tell what. So violent was the shock that Peggy reeled and struck her head sharply against the wall. This brought her to herself. She caught back the sob on her lips, and dashed the tears from her eyes before any one saw them,—or so she hoped; then she looked to see what was going on. Next moment she had forgotten that there were such things as tears in the world.
There were six or eight girls in the group, mostly sophomores, though a few were freshmen. They were looking down at something—somebody—crouching on the floor against the wall, and their laughter, checked for an instant by Peggy's onset, broke out afresh. "Here's Peggy Montfort, just in time to see the fun. Look, Miss Montfort, and see the fashions! Straight from Paris, and the very last thing!"
The speaker was Blanche Haight, a tall sophomore with bleached hair, and eyes set too near together. She was considered a wit, and every time she spoke the other girls giggled and screamed.
The person crouching on the floor was Lobelia Parkins. Her head was pressed against the wall, her face hidden in her hands; misery and terror were in every line of her poor little shrinking figure, but this only gave added delight to her tormentors.
"Look, ladies, at the new sleeve!" cried Miss Haight, lifting the skinny arm, from which the blue poplin sleeve hung in an awkward fashion. "Did you ever see anything so exquisite? Look at the fringe, will you, and the pattern? I'm going to get Miss Russell to put her up on exhibition, so the whole school can have the benefit; it's a shame to keep it to ourselves!"