As Peggy started running back to the place she had left the girls, she
became aware that someone in a blue Peter Thompson had come up the hill
to wait for her, and was at the moment gazing intently toward Gloomy
House, while the wind flapped her skirts and fluttered her hair free of
its ribbon.
"Katherine, Katherine," shouted Peggy, and the figure started to life at
once and came tearing toward Peggy until they were like a couple of
young express trains about to collide at full speed.
"I'll save you, I'll save you," Katherine was crying breathlessly. "I'll
be there in a minute,--I'll save you, dear."
And then the collision happened.
"Oh, oh, oh," gasped Peggy as she and Katherine rolled over each other,
a whirling melange of blue dress and red coat, down the steep slope of
the river bank right into the midst of the waiting group of bacon
batters.
Around them as they sat up, still seeing stars, and aching from the
bumps newly raised on their foreheads to their scratched knees and
ankles, arose a hubbub of questionings, consolations and reproaches.
"Oh, my--land!" moaned Peggy, winking the dust and bits of dried leaves
out of her eyes. "I hope you don't feel as badly as I do, Katherine.
What made you say--" she spoke now in a puzzled tone, for full
consciousness was coming back, "whatever made you say that you
would--_save_ me? Instead you nearly killed me, you know."
"Why, I--ouch! my poor arm--I was going to save you from the ghosts and
things at Gloomy House, of course," answered Katherine indignantly. "You
were gone so long and we were all so worried, that I climbed the top of
the hill to see if I couldn't make out what had become of you--and then
there you were flying away from that awful place like mad, scared to
pieces at something. Naturally, I hollered that I'd save you. What kind
of a room-mate would I have been if I hadn't?"
The tears suddenly started to Peggy's eyes. She felt just at the moment,
in spite of her bruises, all the beautiful thrill that is inspired by
the discovery of absolute loyalty and affection in a room-mate. The
autumn sunlight glinting down on Katherine's yellow hair suddenly seemed
to Peggy like a halo, and impulsively she reached toward her.
"It was fine of you, Katherine," she said, "but I didn't need saving--I
was running because I was in a hurry to tell you people that the dinner
is on. And Mr. Huntington doesn't mind the grounds--I mean the grinds,
but I'm so wounded I can't talk straight,--and we're to have it on
Thanksgiving if Friend Forest will let us. Girls, he's perfectly
wonderful--"
"_Oh_, dear," sighed Katherine, "and all that worry on my part for
nothing."
"And all your injuries for nothing, too," sniggered Florence Thomas
heartlessly. "You infants with your terribly impromptu manner of
returning to our midst will be the death of me yet. Peggy, please draw a
long, calm breath and then let us in on what really happened in Gloomy
House."
To an eager audience, then, Peggy told the whole outcome of her
adventure, interrupting herself now and then to suggest, with some
irrelevance certain dishes that would be particularly desirable as part
of the dinner.
"Do you suppose Mrs. Forest will ever let us do such a novel sort of
thing?" asked Katherine as the girls, after stamping out the remains of
their little fire on the river rocks, gathered up their coats and
sweaters to go back to the school.
"Not--for--a--minute." Florence Thomas dashed their hopes with tones as
firm as Mrs. Forest's own might have been in speaking of the matter.
Peggy was rubbing her black and blue forehead thoughtfully.
"Peggy!" cried Katherine, "Florence doesn't think Mrs. Forest will have
it."
Peggy smiled, a long, slow smile, and her black eyes narrowed to mere
laughing slits. "She'll be crazy about it," she insisted.
It wasn't until dinner time that the girls, in their dainty evening
frocks, already seated at the various little tables, with the candles
gleaming onto their flushed cheeks and powdered necks and arms through
the pink candle shades, learned what Peggy intended to do to Mrs. Forest
to make her prophecy come true. Some of the girls had declared she meant
to try hypnotism, others poison, and some said she was planning to have
the President of the United States wire that Mrs. Forest should yield to
her will.
Peggy, herself, came in to dinner late. This in itself was an awful
offense. Every head, blonde, dark and red-gold had long since been
raised from the grace, and were bowed again, more enthusiastically, over
the soup. Oh, the tiny little chiffon "swish" that rustled out from
Peggy's lovely blue frock, and the gentle, ladylike tap, tap of her
pretty little blue slippers as she moved across the glazed floor of the
dining-room and bent for an instant at Mrs. Forest's place to whisper,
"Pardon me," rather as if she were conferring a favor by her notice than
apologizing for a heinous sin. Then she slipped into her chair, which
happened to be at Mrs. Forest's very table, and sat, sweet and erect,
with the soft candle light over her gold-glinting hair, in her radiant
black eyes, and deepening the wonderful, sweeping color of her face. Her
slender neck was delicate and proud as a princess'. The other girls'
fingers rested motionlessly on their soup spoons for an instant, during
which they looked at their Peggy, spellbound. There was an air of
graciousness, of regal beauty about her. There was no trace of the poor
little Peggy who had once tried so hard to be a belle and had failed so
miserably. This Peggy was lovely in some wonderful, heart-stopping
fashion that made them all marvel.
Mrs. Forest's eyes traveled over that graceful figure and the sternness
gave way to something else. The little Miss Parsons was developing into
the very type of girl to make Andrews most proud, she reflected.
Each year when June came she took the girls who had perfect records for
behavior to Annapolis for one of the hops. When Peggy had come in late
she was deciding Peggy should never hear the marine band under her
auspices or dance with any lads in uniform. But as she considered what
other girl in the school would do her so much honor as this wonderful,
angelic appearing little creature, or whose program would be more
eagerly filled by the good-looking young midshipmen who always crowded
with enthusiasm around the Andrews girls?
"Mrs. Forest," began Peggy in a worldly, conversational tone, after a
few minutes, "isn't the old Huntington place beautiful? And did you ever
notice that large portrait in the hall--the Sargent?"
Mrs. Forest gasped. "In the hall?" she asked sharply, "_IN_ the hall?"
Peggy nodded.
"Mr. Huntington belongs to one of our old aristocratic families, here,
Miss Parsons," the principal began pompously. "He is a very proud and
very retiring sort of person. Since he lost the vast fortune of the
Huntingtons he has never cared for society and no one is welcome in his
house. Although I am acquainted with the members of all the first
families here, I have not had occasion to meet Mr. Huntington--though we
all know him by sight. And I should prefer that my young ladies did not
demean themselves and me by _peering in at the hall windows_ and
ferreting out the Sargents on the wall."
"O-oh," breathed Peggy, with the tiniest little society sigh. "Mr.
Huntington is a very good friend of mine and as I stopped in to talk a
moment with him to-day--"
One of the girls choked and ignominiously thrust her napkin almost into
her month to keep back the strange chortlings and chucklings that were
trying to break forth.
Mrs. Forest's eyes grew round, but her face had that set expression
maintained by a person who wants to show no surprise whatever, even in
the face of one of the greatest shocks of her life.
"He is a friend of yours?--I didn't know," she murmured, all honey.
"Yes, and he so approves of my being in this school," continued Peggy,
with a graceful little rushing eagerness. "He says he thinks we learn
just the right things. I told him about the cand--I mean I told him the
things we learn and he said he approved of higher education for girls.
He would like to meet you, Mrs. Forest."
"So?" said Mrs. Forest in rather pleased surprise. "Well, I never
thought he cared about meeting anybody--did he say anything like that,
really?"
"Say?--why, he wants us to go there for Thanksgiving dinner!" cried
Peggy rapturously. "You and me and the whole school!"
The utter strangeness of any such desire on Mr. Huntington's part,--its
incredible suddenness--was already beginning to fade out in Mrs.
Forest's practical mind before the economic advantages such an
invitation offered. Times were hard that year, and while she liked the
girls to be wonderfully well satisfied with the holiday dinners at the
school, nevertheless turkey, cranberries, pies, almonds ran expenses up
greatly. In one stupendous jumble the necessary preparations had been
oppressing her mind now for several days, and all the scratch pads on
her desk were covered with scrawling figures indicating the amount of
money it would take to put so elaborate a dinner through.
If anybody in the town was so markedly peculiar as to invite a whole
school to Thanksgiving dinner, she felt an immediate inclination to take
advantage of it.
Around the table as Peggy had finished speaking, and while Mrs. Forest
toyed with her salad, went a barely audible chorus of groans from the
girls. How could Peggy do such a short-sighted thing as to include their
principal in the plan? She knew as well as anyone that her presence
would spoil everything. In their hearts they had known that some one of
the teachers would have to go along with them even if the impossible
came true and they were allowed to give the party. But they had hoped it
would be Miss Carrol, and that Mrs. Forest would be safely shaken off
with her blightingly rigid ideas of discipline for at least that one
day. Now Peggy had hopelessly gotten them into having her if they went
at all. Peggy pretended not to notice their unhappy glances in her
direction.
"That's very kind of your friend," Mrs. Forest was saying in a sugary
voice. "I'm sure the school ought to feel honored at an invitation to
Huntington House--"
"_Gloomy_ house," whispered Florence Thomas, who was sitting on the
other side of Peggy.
Mrs. Forest frowned slightly. "To Huntington House," she repeated
mouthingly. "It used to be the center of all the social activities in
the town a long time ago. But after the fortune went--and the daughter
and her family went away--"
"Yes, wasn't that too bad," murmured Peggy. "His grandson is older than
I am, now."
"You know him, too?" asked Mrs. Forest quickly.
"No," admitted Peggy. "I haven't met him--yet."
"You think Mr. Huntington was perfectly--serious in his invitation? It
was a definite one?" Mrs. Forest asked thoughtfully.
"Yes, very," Peggy assured her. "And we girls are going to cook the
dinner,--to show what clever people you are training up in this school,
you know."
For Peggy had decided within herself that Mrs. Forest need not know that
the girls were going to purchase the supplies for the dinner, also. If
Mr. Huntington made a good impression on the principal just as things
were, then let well enough alone, was her idea.
A curious, weighing look had crept into Mrs. Forest's eyes. Peggy
thought she was trying to decide whether or not to permit the girls to
accept, and to go herself. But the principal's next remark showed that
she had already come way beyond that phase of the question and was
actively considering even the remote advantages that might accrue as a
result of their joint appearance at Huntington House on Thanksgiving
day.
"Perhaps," she said softly, "perhaps--Mr. Huntington's affairs are
turning out a bit better nowadays and he might be willing to donate
fifty dollars to the new gymnasium we need so badly."
Peggy put her hand over her mouth to stop the sudden exclamation of
dismay that she must otherwise have uttered. The school did need a
decent gymnasium, everybody knew that. And Mrs. Forest besought every
rich girl who came to the school to interest her parents to the extent
of getting them to give contributions. For five thousand dollars they
could build a very nice one, large enough for their comparatively small
school, and well enough equipped to start. Once in a while a girl in the
spirit of generous affection for Andrews gave ten dollars or so out of
her allowance, but the fund was not coming along very fast.
The idea of going to a party at Mr. Huntington's house and then dunning
that poor old man for a portion of the expense of building something in
which he could really have not the least particle of interest was
particularly repugnant to Peggy.
"Graft, Mrs. Forest," she said daringly, shaking her finger and laughing
a little. "Regular graft, and no fair."
As Mrs. Forest flushed and tried to smile Peggy recalled the curious
remark Mr. Huntington had made about people coming to him for money
every time "certain rumors" came up afresh. She pondered over this.
"I will write a little note of acceptance," Mrs. Forest mused.
And, after dinner, to the anguish of all the girls, she did.
"That was the only way she'd let us go," Peggy told them all in
self-defense, and then in the delight of definite plans their joy in the
prospect returned.