"Grace, then, thank you! Well, you see, the Owls,—that is, Bertha asked me to come to their room this evening, and of course I want to dreadfully,—though not more dreadfully than I want to come out now," she added, wistfully. "And if I do, you see, I must get my rhetoric done. It's awfully hard, and I am so stupid about it, it takes me for ever. Oh, will you ask me again some time, please?"
The Scapegoat regarded her for a moment, standing with the ball in her hand, swaying her light, graceful body to and fro.
"Another slave of virtue?" she said. "Can I permit this? Innocent, I have half a mind to cause you to come down. I am to be thrown over for owls, who have, if you will consider the matter, neither horns nor hoofs? I am to let you stay and grind through the afternoon for them and for my Puggy? Well—"
Her whole face seemed to lighten with whimsical determination. She laid her hand on the fire-escape, and seemed on the point of mounting it, when suddenly another change came over her. Her eyes darkened into their usual melancholy look.
"Here's luck!" she said, abruptly. "See you later, Innocent!" She was gone, and Peggy, with a revulsion of feeling, wished she had gone with her. Bertha was a dear, and Miss Merryweather looked lovely, but neither of them had the fascination of this strange girl, so unlike any one she had ever seen in her life.
It was a forlorn afternoon; but Peggy stuck to her work manfully, and had the satisfaction of closing the book at last with the feeling that she was sure of it now, however things might be in the morning under Miss Pugsley's hostile eye.
There was still a little time left before supper. She ran out to the lawn, hoping to find Grace Wolfe still there, but she was disappointed. The only occupants of the lawn were half a dozen sophomores clustered together at one end. Blanche Haight was among them, and at sight of Peggy she turned her back pointedly, and whispered to the others. They turned with one accord and stared at Peggy, with a cool insolence that made her blood boil within her and surge up in angry red to her forehead. She could not do anything about it; they had a right to stare, if they had no better manners. She returned the look for a moment, then turned away with a sore and angry heart. Fortunately, at this moment came out two classmates of her own whom she knew slightly,—mild, pleasant girls, with no special traits of interest, but still friendly and approachable. They were going to play tennis, and invited Peggy to join them; so she had a good half-hour of exercise and pleasure, and came in with rosy cheeks, and with the cobwebs all blown away for the time.
At eight o'clock Peggy was standing before her glass, putting a last touch to her hair, and surveying her image with some anxiety. Did she "look nice?" Peggy had as little personal vanity as a girl could well have; but she had learned from her cousin Margaret that it was part of her duty to look as well as she could. Her cousin Rita would have had her go further than this.
"Study, my child," Rita would cry, "to be beautiful! Let it be your dream by night, your thought by day!" And, in all kindness, Rita would try to teach her how to cross her feet so that they might look slender, how to extend her little finger when she raised her hand, "not too much, but to an exact point, chérie!" how to turn her head so as to show the lines of the neck to advantage. But Peggy's own good sense, aided by Margaret's calm wisdom, had told her the inappropriateness of Rita's graceful airs and poses to her own sturdy personality. She was to look nice; more she could not aspire to. So here she was to-night, in a pretty blue silk waist, with a serge skirt of a darker shade, her hair smoothly braided in one mammoth "pigtail," and tied with blue ribbons, her neat collar fastened with a pretty pearl brooch. Thus attired, our Peggy was truly pleasant to look upon; and her "Is that right, Margaret?" brought a little satisfied nod of reply from the smiling image in the glass.
Drawing near the Owl's Nest, she heard a hum of voices, and straightway her heart sank again, and shyness possessed her. There was a crowd there! They would all be juniors and seniors, and she the only freshman among them. How could she go in? Oh! she almost wished she was up in the other corridor with the younger girls!