Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

When Peggy escorted Lobelia Parkins back to her room, she found that it was the one directly above her own. Point for point, the rooms were alike, fire-escape and all,—so far as the actual outlines were concerned; there, however, the likeness ended. There had been no Uncle John, no Margaret, in this case. The room was furnished, evidently, by the same hand that had dressed the girl, and with equal taste. The carpet on the floor was costly, but hideous as staring colours and execrable design could make it. The furniture was cumbrous, and the fact that the ugly chairs were rosewood, and their cushions brocade, made them neither beautiful nor comfortable. On the bureau were some bottles of red Bohemian glass, such as were thought handsome fifty years ago; an elephant of a writing-desk, staring with plush and gilding, almost covered the table. Altogether, the room was as desolate as its occupant; more could not be said. Lobelia seemed smaller and more shrunken than ever amid all this tasteless display; she seemed conscious of it, too, as she gazed piteously at Peggy. She had been crying, in a furtive, frightened way; and, gazing at her, Peggy felt that it must be years ago that she was crying, too, and hoping for nothing in the world save to get to her room and have a good solid deluge of tears. At present it seemed hardly likely that she should ever weep again; she felt strong and confident, and was still burning with indignation, none the less hotly that the outward flame had gone down. Her kind companion had been obliged to leave them, with the promise of seeing them soon again. Peggy thought she might stay a few minutes, though the gong for gym had already rung.

"Now, Lobelia," she was saying,—"I am going to call you Lobelia, you know, and you are to call me Peggy, and we are going to be friends. Now, Lobelia, mind what I say! if those girls ever give you any more trouble, you are to come straight to me. Do you hear?"

"Yes," said Lobelia, faintly.

"Have they tormented you before? Beasts! Or was this the first time?"

"Oh, not—not so much!" said the girl, deprecatingly. "A little yesterday; but—I don't know whether they meant to be unkind, Peggy. I know that my dress is queer!"

"Don't be so meek!" cried Peggy, unable to repress a little stamp of her foot, which made Lobelia start. "Have some spirit of your own, Lobelia. I tell you, these girls are mean, cowardly wretches, not fit for girls like the Owls to speak to. They don't speak to them much, either," she added, "and I'm not going to any more than I can help."

Lobelia looked more miserable than ever. "Don't!" she said. "I can't bear to have any one get into trouble on my account. It—it needn't matter to you, Peggy. Of course you are very, very kind, and I think I should have died if you had not come along just then, for I couldn't seem to bear much more; but I don't want you to get into trouble."

"Who's going to get into trouble?" demanded Peggy. "Guess I can take care of myself against such a set as that."

"I don't want you to get into trouble!" repeated Lobelia; and, as she spoke, she glanced around the room with a peculiar shrinking look, one would say a look of dread, that Peggy did not understand.

"Who's next door to you?" she asked, briefly. "Rose Barclay, for one, I know. Who is on the other side?"

Lobelia thought it was another freshman, but was not sure.

"Have they troubled you?" asked Peggy, suspiciously.

But Lobelia shook her head, and seemed so distressed at the question that Peggy did not know what to think.

"Please, please don't bother about me!" she implored. "I dare say it will be a good deal better now, after you and Miss Merryweather being so brave and so kind. I don't want to say anything against anybody. Please, please forget all about it, Peggy."

"I want you to be brave yourself," cried Peggy; and Lobelia started again, and shrank in her chair. "Don't be so—so—well, I don't know any word but meeching, and Margaret won't let me say that. But have a spirit of your own, and stand up to them, and give 'em as good as they send. I would, I tell you, quick enough, if they tried it on me."

Lobelia looked at her with hopeless eyes. "But I am not you!" she said. "I—Peggy, I know just how I look, and how I seem, and how little and ugly and queer I am. I don't wonder they laugh, I don't, really. I haven't any spirit, either; I can't have. You can't do anything with me; it isn't any use."

Peggy gazed at her, with eyes almost as hopeless as her own. Yet she must make one more attempt; and with it the honest blood came into her face.

"Look here, Lobelia!" she said, "I am awkward, too, and shy, and—and stupid, awfully stupid. Why, my cousin Rita used to call me—never mind, that was only before she grew so kind! But I know what it is to be laughed at, my dear! Only this morning, in rhetoric, Miss Pugsley was just as hateful as she could be, and all the girls laughed; yes, they did. So you are not so different as you think. Why,—I don't mind telling you,—when I came along just now, I was trying to get to my own room, so that I could have a good cry. There, Lobelia! now how do you feel?" Lobelia raised her eyes with a wondering look; but next moment her eyes fell on the looking-glass and she shook her head.

"No!" she said. "No, Peggy! You are kind, and you want to make me feel comfortable; but look!"

She motioned toward the mirror. Peggy looked, and her kind heart sank. She herself was no beauty; her round, fair face and honest blue eyes were pleasant to look at, and she had beautiful hair, but that was all; yet she could not help seeing that she was a very vision of loveliness beside the sallow, puny, almost deformed aspect of her poor little neighbour. She coloured deep with angry sympathy, but Lobelia only smiled, a wan little smile.

"You see!" she said. "It's no use, Peggy."

For all answer, Peggy threw her arms around the shrinking figure, and pressed it in a warm embrace. "I don't care!" she cried. "I don't say you are pretty, you poor little thing, but just remember that you are my friend, and if anybody dares to meddle with you again, they'll have to reckon with me, that's all. And now I must go, or I shall lose all the drill. Cheer up, Lobelia, and don't sit here and mope, mind! and if you have any more trouble, just knock on the floor, and I'll be up in half a quarter of a jiffy. Good-bye, dear!" and off she ran, feeling that at least she had left some degree of comfort and cheer behind her.

Soon, however, came something that put Lobelia Parkins and her troubles out of Peggy's head for the time. Bertha Haughton was not at the gymnasium, but when Peggy came back to her own room after an hour of rapture, she found a note pinned on her pincushion.

"Dear Peggy:—Study hard, please, and get through before this evening. The Snowy Owl is going to give us a Grand Tell about the wedding she has been to, and we both want you to come, too. I'm going to speak to Miss Russell, but you'd better ask her, too; it will be all right, for the Snowy has asked permission, anyhow. Eight o'clock, just after reading; be sure to come on time!

"Affectionately,
"Bertha."

It was hard to study through that lovely afternoon, when the other girls, or most of them, were out-of-doors, playing tennis or basket-ball, and their voices came in at the window in every tone of joyousness and delight. It was very hard to study the detested rhetoric and history, but Peggy was strong in her good resolve, and bent steadily over her books, trying her very best. Once, indeed, came a sore temptation, when a ball struck her window lightly, and, going to look out, she saw Grace Wolfe standing below.

"Come out, Innocent!" said the Scapegoat, in her deep, musical tones. "Come and sport with me!

"Oh! Oh, thank you!" cried Peggy. "I wish I could, but I have to work now, I'm afraid."

Peggy leaned out of the window; it really seemed as if her body would be drawn out after her longing spirit, which had been out and away from the first summons.

"Yes, the Owls!" she said. "That's just it, Miss Wolfe."

"No!" interrupted Grace. "Not Miss Wolfe! Not all Æsop! Impossible to be wolf and goat at the same time, and do justice to either character. Let it be Goat, or Grace, as you like."

"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!

But at this moment the door opened, and Bertha's kind face looked out.

"Here you are, Peggy!" she cried, cordially. "Come along; there's plenty of room, for I've saved a place for you. Come!"

For a moment Peggy hung back, and knew how Lobelia Parkins felt; then she made an effort, and followed Bertha into the room.

The Owl's Nest was a corner room, with windows on two sides. It seemed to be furnished chiefly with books. There were the two brass beds, of course, the twin bureaus, the desks, and table. All of these, except the beds, were covered with books; bookshelves took up most of the wall space, though there were two or three good pictures, among them a great photograph of the sea, that almost dashed the spray in one's face, so perfect was it. It was at a later visit that Peggy observed the books; now, she was conscious of nothing save the girls. The room was certainly full of them. There were three on each bed, curled up in every variety of picturesque and comfortable attitude; two sat on one of the bureaus, having pushed books and toilet articles up into a toppling and highly perilous mountain behind them; four more crouched somehow on the rather narrow window-seats. The rest were on the floor, except two early birds, who had come in time to get the two chairs. The floor was made comfortable with sofa-pillows, borrowed from the whole length of the corridor. Altogether, there might have been twenty girls in the room, and every girl was, or seemed to be, talking as fast as her tongue could move.

Peggy was hailed with a bird-like call from one corner.

"My Veezy-vee! come here, Peggy Montfort, and sit by me."

It was Viola Vincent. She was curled up at the head of one of the beds. She wore the prettiest pink tea-gown imaginable, and her hair was a wonder of puffs and curls.

"Come here!" she repeated, patting the pillows. "Lots of room; miles! Let her come here, Fluffy!"

"Yes, she shall, in a minute, V.," replied Bertha. "But first,—Toots, here's Peggy Montfort!"

The Snowy Owl came swiftly out of the closet, where she had been performing some mystic rite; she took Peggy's two hands in hers, and held them in a warm, firm grasp that was the very soul of cordiality.

"I'm so glad!" she said. "How's the poor little thing? Better? I'm sure you did her a great deal of good."

"Oh, no!" stammered Peggy, pleased and confused. "I couldn't really do anything; but she is feeling better."

Gertrude Merryweather nodded wisely. "My dear, you can do a great deal for her!" she said. "We'll have a talk sometime; no chance now. Only, Bertha has been telling me things, and I'm so glad you are in our street! There, now V. shall have you."

Judge of the glow at Peggy's heart, on these words from the Junior President, the best-loved girl—or so it was said—in the whole school. Those foolish tears actually got half-way up to her eyes,—only they were very different from the last tears; but fortunately Viola's high-pitched babble drove them back again.

"My dear! How nice you look! perf'ly fine! doesn't she, V.? Say, that's a dandy pin you've got on, simply dandy! There! isn't this too quaint for anything? You comfy? so'm I! Room, my dear? gallons of room! I haven't seen you for an age; where have you kept yourself? I looked into your room, though, and it's perf'ly fine! I told you it would be, when you had things fixed. Your chintz is too perfectly sweet for anything; isn't it, V.? We were simply cold with envy, weren't we, V.?"

"Do cackle for yourself, if you must cackle, V.!" responded Vivia Varnham, who sat on the same bed, a little lower down. "I can't hear myself think, you make such a noise."

"No, really?" cried Viola. "But that must be such an advantage sometimes, V. But, say! we came here to hear the Snowy talk, didn't we? She hasn't had much chance yet, has she? Are you ready to talk, Snowy? Oh, you duck! it is too perfectly enchanting to have you back again. I haven't lived since you went away, have I, V.? I've been simply a vegetable, haven't I, V.? Potatoes, my dear, are lively compared to me. Are you ready to talk, Snowy?"

"If you are ready to have me," replied the Snowy Owl, laughing. "First, however—here!"

She produced a mammoth box of "marshmallows," and handed it around. It was received with a shout.

"Toast 'em!" cried one. "Hat-pins!" cried another. There was a movement toward the gas-jet; but Bertha Haughton checked it decidedly. "You have come here to hear the Snowy tell!" she said. "It's a long tell, and if you begin toasting now, there won't be time. Tell first, toast afterward! that's what I say!"

"Hark to the Fluffy! she speaks well!" cried the girls. There was silence; and Gertrude Merryweather, sitting on the floor, with her hands clasped around her knees, began her "tell."