It seemed no time at all to Peggy, after the Indian summer passed, that
winter rushed upon them and shriveled them up on their way to classes,
and blew powdered snow in their faces when they went for their walks.
"There's only one thing I can think of to brighten things up," wailed
Doris Winterbean one day, "so that we'll all carry away pleasant
memories of the place for Christmas."
"Well, what's that?" asked Peggy, without interest, for each day of hers
was as full of good times as it could be, and she thought she wouldn't
need pleasant things to remember over the holidays anyway, because she
would be enjoying herself so much during them that it would crowd all
thoughts of past and future, too, out of her head.
"A house dance," said Doris thrillingly.
Peggy was all interest now.
"Would they--could we get one up before Christmas?" she asked. "But
then," the brightness faded from her eyes, "I have to lead half of the
time and I'm not tall enough, so it really doesn't matter as much to me
as it might."
"Oh, pshaw," exclaimed Doris, "I didn't mean that kind of a dance. Not
just girls, you know."
"No-o?" said Peggy cautiously.
"Of course not."
"Well, whom then?"
"Oh, people from Amherst or Williams--or Dartmouth or wherever we can
get them."
"You mean a _man_ dance?"
"Yes."
"Well, let's have it right away."
"I don't know anybody to ask, except a young prep school boy, but----"
"Oh, I'll have Jim bring over a lot of people from Amherst, and we can
decorate the room with purple in their honor, and then we can all sing
their songs when the dancing is over."
The plans for the dance were soon being elaborately laid by every
Amblerite. The matron said it must be in the afternoon. So they set a
convenient Saturday, and dispatched their invitations informally over
the telephone. Jim responded so nobly to the appeal Peggy made to him,
that he rounded up half a dozen football stars and glee club men for the
partners of the girls who didn't know anybody within telephoning
distance.
"I'll bring the whole frat, if you say so," came Jim's cheerful voice
over the wire. "Half of them can't dance to amount to anything, but they
can stand around and be ornamental--and fetch and carry ices."
"Well, our dancing isn't a thing of beauty and a joy forever either, but
that won't keep us off the floor. Bring anybody you like, that is, of
the kind I mentioned, but they must be willing."
"_Willing_? Can you take care of all Amherst if I bring it?"
"_Yes_," responded Peggy enthusiastically. "_We_ could, but there
wouldn't be ices enough."
"Oh, well," laughed Jim, "you can't expect us to come without ices."
"I suppose not."
"Well, you expect us Saturday. Six of us anyway. I'll bring the crowd
over in my machine."
"Oh, _Jim_! Have you a machine?"
"Better believe I have. And some day, when the weather is fine, I'll
take you riding."
"Oh, goody! What kind is it?"
"A Ford."
And Peggy hung up the receiver on the laugh that drifted to her over the
wire.
She climbed to her room and sank silently down on the window seat.
All the recitations of Saturday morning dragged unaccountably whenever
an Ambler House girl was called on.
They were too eager for classes to be over and the time for the dance to
come, to take a great interest in dative and accusative cases, or in the
sum of the angles of right angle triangles.
"I'm going to dress as carefully as I _can_," said Peggy, scrubbing her
happy face until it shone.
"Yes, do, dear, and please take time to put on stockings that are
mates," laughed Katherine as she laid a dainty afternoon dress upon the
bed and removed her pumps from their shoe-trees.
After many little pats on ruffles and curls Peggy and Katherine were
dressed at last, and stood before their mirrors almost satisfied.
Then Katherine went downstairs to see if the girls needed any last help
with the decorations.
Hazel Pilcher stuck her head in at Peggy's door.
"Ready?" she called.
Peggy swung from the mirror and bowed to her, laughing.
"As ready as I can be," she said. "Hazel, you look simply wonderful. You
look--like somebody in the movies or on the stage."
"Well," said Hazel easily. "_You_ might look prettier than you do,
Peggy; you don't make the most of yourself."
Peggy turned her disappointed gaze back to the mirror.
"Come down to my room and I'll just fix you up a little," said Hazel.
Now Hazel's ideas of dress, and those of the rest of the girls in the
house, widely differed. For she always bought the most extreme styles in
hats and suits, and she always adopted the most exaggerated new
mannerisms of walking and talking.
So Peggy was inclined to be doubtful of the value of her assistance, but
Hazel urged her, so she finally went down to her room.
Here, Hazel uncorked several delightful-looking little jars.
"You'd better shut your eyes," warned she, and a minute later something
cool was sliding along Peggy's eye-lashes, and then she felt it again,
going over her eye-brows.
She knew in a horrible moment just what was happening, but the foolish
wish to look as wonderful as possible, held her silent, and prevented
the protest that had sprung to her lips.
"And now," said Hazel, in a matter-of-fact way, "your lips."
And Peggy watched fascinatedly in a hand-glass while the dainty, scented
little red pencil made its crimson imprint on her mouth.
"And--just a touch on your cheeks," said Hazel again.
"No," said Peggy, "that would be too absurd; I won't----"
"Well," conceded Hazel, laughing, "you don't really need it; your face
is as red as fire now. You seem to think your looks are very much
changed. But they're just improved. Everybody will still _recognize_
you, you know, Peggy, infant."
"They're here; they're here," an excited buzz went through the second
floor, at the word of some generous messenger, who had run up for a
minute from below, to spread the news.
Peggy forgot everything in the haste she made to get down to greet the
boys, for she was responsible for the coming of a large number of the
guests, and she thought how peculiar Jim would think it if she were not
even there to welcome them.
"Jim," she cried, holding out her hand. "I'm awfully glad to see you.
And Mr. Bevington, too. No, you're not a bit early. We've been upstairs
twiddling our thumbs and wondering why in the world--we thought the Ford
must have broken down, you know," she added as she opened the door into
the big reception room, which looked very lovely with its many purple
banners.
With the handsome Amherst contingent at her heels, Peggy carried her
small curly head high while a pardonable pride shone in her eyes.
A gasp went up from the groups of girls, who were standing about in
different parts of the big room, talking to the few guests who had
arrived before the Amherst men.
"Look what Peggy Parsons has with her," murmured Doris Winterbean to
Florence Thomas, while the small princess advanced, chatting with her
subjects.
Never had such a fine set of young men descended upon Ambler--or any
other campus house, for any occasion except the incomparable annual
occasion of Junior prom.
"Doris, let me present Mr. Bevington, who plays on the football team;
and Mr. Mason, the president of the dramatic club, and Mr. Brown, the
one who wrote that article we were all so crazy about in their paper."
Thus the introductions went on, and the girls who met these heroes would
have been tongue-tied before such greatness had not Peggy, before she
left them, raised them also to eminence. Miss Winterbean was the one who
had invented the Lilian Walker waltz the girls would teach their guests
that afternoon; Miss Thomas, of course, was the vice-president of the
freshman class--"the best class----" Peggy leaned over and whispered it,
so that the girls who were not members of it shouldn't hear,----"the
best class that had ever come to Hampton." Miss Pilcher was the house
entertainer, and could play anything that was written, for a piano.
Hearing themselves thus praised, the girls took heart and laughed
happily up into the faces of the men as the music began.
"My Little Dream Girl" caught them up into its delightful, sweet rhythm,
and with such partners as they had not enjoyed before in college, the
Hampton girls were swung out across the floor.
To Peggy, laughing up at Bud Bevington, it seemed that the whole world
was dancing. He knew so many funny steps, and threaded his way so
dangerously among the other couples, doubling the time, and then going
even faster, until their one-step was simply a run-step as fast as they
could go.
"You--you think--this is a football field," gasped Peggy, when she could
speak at all. "I--I'm half dead--I know now how it feels to be a
football."
"You mean I've been kicking you,--did I hit your foot, really?"
Bud was contrition itself.
"N-no, certainly you didn't; how could you when they went so fast? I
mean you have been making a goal with me."
"I hope the goal is a long way off," laughed the football man.
They had gone around nearly twice more, when he bent and said suddenly
in Peggy's ear, "Who is our cross-looking friend in the doorway with the
Charley Chaplin scowl?"
"Man or woman?" asked Peggy.
"Woman," he answered.
"Well, I see quite a group of our house-matron in the doorway--but she
is probably only one, but if you don't stop running with me so fast I
can't be really sure whether there are ten of her or just one."
Noticeably slackening his pace, he glanced again toward the matron.
"Still looks ominous," he warned.
"You must come over and meet her--but let's go very slowly for a while,
till the atmosphere clears a little."
When they finally approached the matron, she smiled at Bud
Bevington--who could help it? And Peggy was able to get her breath,
while the two talked for a few minutes.
Peggy danced every dance, sometimes in the large reception room with all
the others, and sometimes in the alcove parlor off at one end, where new
steps could be tried without any onlookers, if failure resulted.
She noticed that several of her partners looked at her rather intently,
and she fervently hoped it was because she looked very nice. But there
was usually a fleeting smile that baffled her. No, it was something
besides admiration--or a new kind of admiration or something--oh, she
would give up trying to account for it, and just have a good time.
So she danced with every guest and enjoyed her ices, and said good-bye
to the boys with great reluctance, and pressed her nose against the
window pane to see the last of them.
Jim, glancing back, as he started the machine--which wasn't a Ford at
all--saw her and waved.
The machine chugged off, and she went upstairs with a happy sigh and a
little regretful that their house dance was over.
When she reached her room, Katherine, who had preceded her, gave her one
startled glance, and then burst out laughing.
"Oh, you look awful, child," she said, "whatever happened to you?"
And Peggy rushed to the mirror.
Horror of horrors--what--and then she remembered! Those eye-lashes and
eye-brows that Hazel had put on so carefully--and those lips, too--had
run! The black wavered down greasily from her eyes, making weird dark
lines. The mouth with which she had so carelessly eaten ices was--a good
deal to one side now.
"I forgot," murmured Peggy, and that was all she was able to say, and
this she repeated miserably at intervals, while Katherine dipped a towel
in the water pitcher and began applying it to the beautifiers.
"Don't tell me until you want to," said Katherine, trying to keep the
giggles back, and to speak sympathetically. "It isn't so very bad--just
kind of--wavy."
"Well," moaned Peggy, "Hazel Pilcher put it on. I can't think how I came
to let her, and--it must have been awfully poor make-up and got
so--warm----!"
Her explanation ended in a sob and she jerked away from Katherine's
ministrations, and flung herself a crying heap upon the couch.
"Oh, Katherine! and I thought I looked so nice! Oh, they all saw and
_knew_, and the ones I just met to-day couldn't know but I marked up my
face like that always. It's--it's awful--I wish I had never come to
college--I wish I'd never seen an Amherst man--or Hazel Pilcher either.
What shall I do?"
"Jim knows," Katherine soothed.
"B-but he'll be ashamed of me," moaned Peggy.
"He won't either. He'll just think it's funny," Katherine tried to
comfort her.
"Funny! Oh, dear, and I suppose it is--but not to me. And Bud
Bevington--every time he's seen me there's been something--r-ridiculous
about me!"
Peggy shook with sobs, and hid her face in the cushions of the window
seat, sure that she would never take any pleasure in life again.
She wouldn't go down to dinner, so Katherine had it sent up on a tray,
and though Peggy felt that she really wasn't the tiniest bit hungry, she
ate all that was brought to her, and almost wished she had decided to go
down after all, because then she might have asked for a second helping.
Katherine and the other freshmen made up an impromptu party to go to a
picture show that evening, but Peggy could not be persuaded to join
them.
"I never knew her to sulk before," said Florence Thomas. "What in the
world is the matter with her?"
"Sulk," cried Katherine indignantly, "why Peggy doesn't know how to
_sulk_. She--she just had a very sad thing happen to her, and you'd cry,
too, if it happened to you, only you wouldn't get over it as soon as
Peggy will."
The picture show wasn't a great deal of fun for Katherine when most of
her thoughts were drifting back to her poor room-mate. The rest of the
girls laughed and cried at little Mary Pickford's pathos and drollery,
but she felt it difficult to keep her attention on the screen, and was
almost glad when it was over, and they could hurry back to Ambler House.
The door of Suite 22 stood open, all the lights blazed forth, the sound
of happy laughter came to her ears and the unmistakable perfume of
American beauty roses greeted her nostrils.
"Peggy!" she cried, as she entered the room, to find every available
vase full of the most gorgeous roses she had ever seen, and an
appreciative sophomore and junior court listening to the tale of Peggy's
sad experiences of the afternoon.
"You little wretch," she said, shaking her fist at her room-mate in mock
rage, "when you get _me_ to sympathize with you again, you'll know it.
It's just a joke now, isn't it, but, girls, she was crying her eyes out
over it an hour or so ago."
"Th-that's just what I've been telling them," cried Peggy, "and now I
can't think how I could."
"Well, what's made the change?" Katherine demanded.
Iva Belmington and Hazel Pilcher waved magnificently toward the
overladen vases and water pitchers. "Those," they said simply.
And at the same time Peggy poured a shower of cards into her lap, and,
taking them up, she read, one after the other, the names of all the six
boys from Amherst who had come to their dance that afternoon.
"Wasn't it _lovely_?" cried Peggy. "They evidently left the order at the
florist's when they drove through the town. Look at Jim's card,
Katherine, he wrote something on it."
From the assortment in her lap, Katherine selected the card which read
Mr. James Huntington Smith, and there sure enough across the top of it
were the words in pencil, "With appreciation for a very jolly
afternoon."
"Well,--but they must have seen, just the same," hinted the practical
Katherine.
"Oh, but they didn't _mind_!" returned her radiant room-mate.