Both Owls had a real affection for Peggy, and though they knew nothing as yet of the recent escapade, they felt that it would be well to keep her rather under their wing, the more so that Grace had undoubtedly taken a fancy to the child, too.
"She's too fascinating!" said the Snowy. "We shall have the Innocent falling in love with her if we don't look out, and that would never do!"
"Never!" said the Fluffy, shaking her head wisely; but she added, in an undertone, "If only the mischief isn't done already!"
So the two asked Peggy to help them in the work of preparing the gymnasium for the great event, and she consented with delight. She was making plenty of friends in her own class, oh, yes; especially now that she and Rose Barclay had made it up. She was the one stay and comfort of poor little Lobelia Parkins, and was devotedly kind to that forlorn creature, taking her out to walk almost by main force, and presenting to all comers a front of such stalwart, not to say pugnacious, determination, that no one dared to molest the girl when Peggy was with her. Spite of all this, however, her heart remained in Corridor A, and she would have left the whole freshman class in the lurch at one whistle from the Owls—or, alas! from the Scapegoat.
But all this is by the way, and does not help us to get up the Junior Reception.
There had been an early morning expedition to the neighbouring woods (not, however, through the fire-escape), and Peggy and the Owls had returned each with a wheelbarrow-load of boughs and ground pine and all manner of pleasant woodland things. The leaves had turned, and were glowing with scarlet and gold and russet. These were put in water, lest they should begin to curl and wither before night; while the evergreens were heaped in a corner and left to their fate. Now it was afternoon, and the girls, released from their tasks, had flown to the scene of action. Already the gymnasium began to assume a festive appearance. Several garlands were in place, and on the floor sat six or eight juniors, busily weaving more. Ladders stood here and there. At the top of one stood the Snowy Owl, arranging a "trophy," as she called it, of brilliant leaves, on another, Peggy was valiantly hammering, as she arranged in festoons the long folds of green and white bunting that the Fluffy handed up to her. The Fluffy was a curious sight, being swathed in bunting from head to foot. When Peggy demanded "more slack," she simply turned around a few times and unrolled herself, thus presenting the appearance of an animated spool.
"It's effective," said Gertrude, surveying her from her perch, "but I can't say that it looks comfortable. How ever did you get yourself into such a snarl, Fluff?"
"Why, I was measuring it, don't you know?" said Bertha, "and it got all into a heap on the floor, and there was so much of it I didn't know what to do. So I began to roll it round and round myself, and the first thing I knew I was the cocoon-thing you see before you. I feel as if I ought to come out a butterfly, somehow."
"They are lovely colours!" said Peggy. "There's nothing so pretty as green and white. How do you choose your colours? We haven't chosen ours yet, but I suppose we shall soon."
"The Snowy chose them," said Bertha. "They were Sir Somebody-or-other's colours at the Siege of Acre. I wanted scarlet, because that was Launcelot's—"