It was a month later. The first snow had fallen, and the lawn was white with it, and all the trees and bushes powdered with frost. Coming out of the class-room one day, her heart singing of sines and cosines and tangents, Peggy found the Snowy and the Fluffy waiting for her at the door, with radiant faces.

"Oh, what?" cried Peggy. "A letter?"

"Yes," said Gertrude. "It has just come, though the postmark is two or three days ago. Where shall we go to read it? Your room, Peggy? So we will; it's nearer than the Nest, and I know you can't wait."

Grace's letters were indeed things to wait for in those days. She had gone to Lobelia's home with her; for, on coming to herself, the invalid had still clung to her new friend, with a persistency strange in one so timid and fearful. Convalescence came, with its unwilling fretfulness, its fits of unreason. Still Lobelia clung to Grace, and no one else could make her listen and obey. The nurse laughed, and said she might as well go, and leave her diploma with Miss Wolfe; yet stayed, for the two worked together in pleasant harmony and friendship. At last, Doctor Hendon ordered a change of scene, and now, too, Grace must go with her. The Parkins mansion was within driving distance of Pentland; the whole school had turned out to see the departure, the sick girl lying on cushions, her thin face already showing the signs of returning health, and really transfigured by the light of love and gratitude that beamed from it, as she looked from Grace to Peggy, and back again to Grace. She beckoned to Peggy, who pressed to her side and bent over her. "What is it, dear?" she whispered.

"Peggy!"

"Yes, Lobelia."

"Peggy, you don't mind?"

"Mind what? I don't mind anything, now that you are getting well."

"You—you were my first friend, the only friend I had. You don't mind—that I love her? I couldn't help it, Peggy. She kept me alive, you see. Often and often, when I was drifting away, and ready to die, she held me, and would not let me go. You are sure you don't mind, Peggy?"

Peggy kissed her heartily, and told her not to talk nonsense. "If you didn't love her," she said, "I'd have nothing to do with you, Lobelia Parkins. Do you hear that? Nothing! I wouldn't speak to you in the street, if I met you."

Lobelia smiled, and leaned back on the cushions with closed eyes and a look of absolute content. "You are so funny, Peggy!" she murmured. "She is funny, too. I like people who are funny. Good-bye, and thank everybody. Everybody is so kind!"

The carriage drove away, and the last thing the girls saw was Grace's face, looking down at her charge; grave as ever,—Grace rarely smiled, and they hardly knew the sound of her laugh,—but bright as Lobelia's own with love and purpose and gladness. So they passed out of sight.

And since then had come letters every week, telling of the child's progress; one to Miss Russell always, and one to the Owls or to Peggy. It was one of these that Gertrude took from her pocket now and opened, as they sat together on Peggy's divan.

"You see, it is dated three days ago; probably been carried in a pocket, from the look of it."

The three girls were silent for a moment after Gertrude had folded the letter again. Then, "Do you suppose she will really be changed?" asked Peggy. "I—I don't think I want Grace to be changed, do you, girls?"

"That depends!" said Bertha, with her chin on her hands, in her favourite judicial attitude. "Of course it would be despair if we should lose her real, true self. If she could only stay Grace Wolfe, and change her point of view, why, then—"

"That is just what she will do, I feel sure of it," said Gertrude, earnestly. "She has been through an experience—oh, we can't know what it has been, girls, because we are just plain people, you know, and Grace is—well, I think she has genius, or something very like it. If only the power and the sweetness and brightness are turned into helping, you see, instead of hindering—oh, how much she can do! and I believe she's going to do it, too. But come, Fluffy, I must go home. Won't you come, Peggy? We have half an hour before study-time."

Peggy followed only too gladly along the corridor; it was always a treat to spend half an hour in the Owl's Nest. Gertrude was first; she opened the door of her room, and paused on the threshold with a low cry. Bertha and Peggy hurried forward and looked over her shoulder—to see a strange sight.

Something—or somebody—was sitting on the window-seat. Something gray and soft. It had a round feathered head, with two feathery horns jutting from it; it had round bright eyes, which blinked curiously at the astonished girls. Below the head were—arms, were they, or wings? They were feathery too, and they drooped over something that might be a skirt, though no feet were visible. In the gathering twilight the figure sat on the window-seat and blinked, looking like nothing that was in heaven or earth; and the three girls stood and stared, holding each other's hands. Presently the silence was broken.

"Bubo Virginianus!" said a grave, melodious voice from under the feathers. "The Great Horned Owl. Description: Large and strongly organised; ear-tufts large, erectile; bill strong, fully curved; wing rather long; third quill usually longest; tail short; legs and toes—"

"Grace!" cried Gertrude Merryweather.

"Tu whit!" replied the figure. "I may also in this connection remark, tu whoo! This well-known bird is a resident in all the New England schools—I should say States—throughout the year. It is not so common in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island as in the other States, where, in the vast tracts of forest, it is quite abundant. Samuels. Easy there! spare the Plumage!"

The three girls had flung themselves upon the strange figure, which flapped its arms for a moment, as if contemplating flight. Then, waving them off with one arm, it lifted the feathered head, and gazed at them with melancholy blue eyes.

"Tu whit!" repeated the Scapegoat. "I may be allowed, in this connection, to repeat, tu whoo! Don't kill me, Innocent; I should be less useful dead."

It did seem as if they would hug her to death. They laughed, they cried, they questioned, they talked, all in one breath; no one would have recognised the sedate Owls or the sensible Peggy. Grace regarded them with grave benignity, as she untied the owl's head, and loosed the feathered cape from her shoulders.

"Rather neat, I thought?" she said, turning the head around on her hand. "The beak is a little wobbly, but the general character—eh?—is pretty good? I couldn't manage the toes and claws; there wasn't time, and, besides, they would have excited remark, even if the weather had been warm enough to make them comfortable for travelling. Well, my Snowy, my Fluffy, how is it? Is there room for another Owl in the forest?"

"Oh, Grace!" cried Bertha.

"Oh, my dear!" cried Gertrude; and their arms were around her again, while Peggy sat down on the floor and fairly burst into tears.

Grace was silent for a little, her head resting on Gertrude's shoulder. When she spoke, her voice had not its usual even flow, but hesitated, almost faltered, now and then.

"I am going to try!" she said. "It will take a long time, my Owls, and you will have to be very patient with me. I shall probably never be wholly domesticated, but—but you will help me, and the Innocent here will help me; won't you, Innocent?"

"Oh, Grace, if I only could? but what can I do? I don't see how I can ever do anything!"

"You began it all!" said Grace. "The way you looked—that night I made you go out, little Peggy. You didn't know, but the face of an Innocent can be a terrible thing, and I saw, and knew—things I hadn't known before. No need of going back to that now. But—Snowy—Samuels says I make an amusing pet in captivity. You'll try me?"

"Won't we!" cried the Snowy Owl. "Grace, dear, we'll all try together. Oh, we all have to keep trying, don't we, all our lives long? It wouldn't be worth anything if we didn't have to try, to work and fight for it. It shall be we three against the world,—the Snowy, the Fluffy, and the Horny. No, we four, for what should we do without our Peggy? Get up, Peggy, you ridiculous child; stop crying, and come and sit here close by us."

"Oh!" cried Peggy. "Isn't there some kind of Owl that I could be? I am too stupid, of course, but I might be a screech-owl, don't you think so, Snowy?"

Grace held up her hand. "Forbid the thought!" she said, gravely. "Who would get us our mice? We must have a Human Being connected with us. I think of moving into Bedlam, as Colney has a fine assortment of mice on hand generally. I refuse bats, probably on account of the strong musky odour, but a mouse dragged across the floor of my cage fills me with excitement. Samuels, part of it at least. No, we must have a Human Being in the Owlery, and that Human Being must be the Innocent. We Four against the World, then! Hands on it, my Owls!"

The four girls stood up, and, joining hands, looked in each other's faces. "We Four against the World!" they repeated. "The Snowy, the Fluffy, the Horny, and the Innocent; Hurrah for us!" and the shout they raised brought the whole corridor running to see what was going on.