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," sn.i.g.g.e.red 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 princ.i.p.al 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 princ.i.p.al 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 a.s.sured 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 princ.i.p.al 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 princ.i.p.al"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.
CHAPTER VI-THE BEAN AUCTION