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diff --git a/35729.txt b/35729.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 8b73972..0000000 --- a/35729.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5835 +0,0 @@ - Peggy Parsons a Hampton Freshman - - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost -no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it -under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this -eBook or online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license. - -Title: Peggy Parsons a Hampton Freshman - -Author: Annabel Sharp - -Release Date: March 30, 2011 [EBook #35729] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: US-ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEGGY PARSONS A HAMPTON -FRESHMAN *** - - - - -Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at -http://www.pgdp.net. - - - PEGGY PARSONS - A HAMPTON FRESHMAN - - BY - ANNABEL SHARP - - AUTHOR OF "PEGGY PARSONS AT PREP SCHOOL" - - M. A. DONOHUE & COMPANY - CHICAGO--NEW YORK - - MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - - - - - - -Contents - - - - CHAPTER I--MAKING AN IMPRESSION - - - CHAPTER II--SUITE 22 - - - CHAPTER III--PEGGY'S MASTERPIECE - - - CHAPTER IV--NEW PAINT AND POETRY - - - CHAPTER V--MORNING GLORY - - - CHAPTER VI--AS OTHERS SEE US - - - CHAPTER VII--CINDERELLA - - - CHAPTER VIII--INDIAN SUMMER - - - CHAPTER IX--THE HOUSE DANCE - - - CHAPTER X--TINSEL AND SPANGLES - - - CHAPTER XII--THE AUCTION - - - CHAPTER XIII--FEET OF CLAY - - - CHAPTER XIV--SPRING TERM - - - - - - - - - INTRODUCTION - - - -Last year Peggy Parsons and Katherine Foster were room-mates at Andrews -Preparatory School. - -Their escapades and their hunger for good times and adventure kept them -from being great favorites of the principal there, but they were loved -by the girls of the school and were soon invested with a degree of -leadership. - -"Peggy Parsons at Prep School," the first book in this series, tells how -much happiness they managed to crowd into a single year. - -A would-be charitable enterprise of Peggy's is recounted, also. And if -she had never undertaken it, mistaken though she was, she could not have -gone to Hampton, and the present volume would never have been written. - -Mr. Huntington, a rich old man, whom people believed to be -poverty-stricken because of the way he lived, became a great friend of -Peggy's as the result of a Thanksgiving dinner party she arranged for -the cooking-class of her school to give him. - -She and Katherine were instrumental, through an adventure in playing -amateur detectives, in finding Mr. Huntington's grandson, of whom he had -lost track. - -The grandson--the "Jim" of the present book--was an Amherst student -about Peggy's own age. - -Katherine Foster had planned to go to Hampton College, but Peggy could -not see her way clear. The room-mates were broken-hearted at the -prospect of not being together for another year. After Katherine had -been assigned another room-mate, Gloria Hazeltine, Peggy gave up hope of -going and could not plan with any interest for any other kind of year. - -Mr. Huntington then stepped in and turned over for Peggy's use the -income from a dear little group of bungalows which he had named "Parsons -Court." - -So Katherine and Peggy were enabled to look forward to college together -just as they had their prep school. - - - - - - - - PEGGY PARSONS - A HAMPTON FRESHMAN - - - - - - -CHAPTER I--MAKING AN IMPRESSION - - -"Katherine Foster!" - -"Peggy Parsons!" - -Two suit-cases went banging down on the wooden platform and two radiant -figures hurled themselves into each other's arms, oblivious of the -shriek of departing trains, the rattling of baggage trucks, and the -jostling crowds who were at liberty to laugh at their impulsiveness. - -For this was Springfield, where East meets West on its way to half a -dozen New England colleges, and where every fall the same scenes of -joyous greeting are enacted with the annual accompaniment of little -squeals of delighted welcome and many glad kisses. - -"Well, Peggy, you look just the same as ever!" - -"It's been a perfect _century_, Katherine! Going right up to Hampton? -Taking the 9:10? So am I. Oh, so _much_ to talk about----" - -Breathlessly chattering all the while, the two girls in blue serge, who -had been room-mates last year at preparatory school, gathered up their -suit-cases again and crossed the tracks to the other side of the station -to wait for the Hampton train. Engines steamed along before and behind -them, but neither looked away from the other's glowing face during the -crossing, nor did they cease both to talk at once until they were -actually seated in their train some time later, packed in with a mob of -laughing and attractive girls with suit-cases in the aisles, in the -racks over their heads, and in their laps. - -"Isn't it wonderful that we met this way?" cried Katherine, while Peggy -was trying to hand the remaining untraveled bits of their tickets to the -perspiring conductor. "We'll see our new rooms for the first time -together, and we'll make a very nice impression on the inhabitants of -Ambler House because we can plan out some kind of grand entry to appeal -to them." - -Peggy laughed. "It's an awfully _big_ place we're going to," she said, -looking about at the swaying crowds of girls. "I'm just beginning to -realize it. It will take more than our planning to make any impression -at all, I think. And maybe nobody will _ever_ notice us. It won't be -like Andrews." - -"You're still Peggy Parsons, aren't you? And I'm still your room-mate, -Katherine Foster. _And_ we're going to live in one of the grandest -suites on campus--oh, I don't believe they will pass us by altogether." -And Katherine gave a little swaggering motion of her head that sent -Peggy into gales of laughter. - -"You're conceited and snobbish, friend room-mate," she giggled. "The -summer has spoiled you." - -But Katherine smiled back complacently into her eyes. - -Suddenly there was a curious stir all about them. The girls who had been -standing in the aisle were all pushing toward the end of the car, and -those seated were struggling up from under their luggage, their faces -bright with anticipation. - -"Katherine," whispered Peggy, "I think we're there!" - -Oh, the world of meaning in that one sentence. The hopes, the -expectations, the pleasures and good times for four whole years were -summed up in it, and Katherine silently nodded her head, unable to -speak. - -The brakeman was already calling out something that he meant for -"Hampton," and he rounded out his shout with the long-drawn wail, "Don't -leave any articles in the car!" - -As if any of those precious and bulky suit-cases could be forgotten! The -stampede began in earnest as soon as the train stopped, and Peggy and -Katherine found themselves swept out to the platform and jostled down -the steps and thrust forward toward the station of their own college -town. - -The girls from the train rushed this way and that, and other girls from -the college rushed to meet them. Katherine spied a taxi that had still -two vacant seats. - -"Come, taxi,--quick," she gasped in Peggy's ear. And the two went -running forward, their suit-cases bumping and thumping against their -knees. Before they reached the machine they saw that they were racing -with a mob of other girls, all frankly eager to be the first to secure -places in the last cab with a vacancy. - -In every direction other taxis were whirring off, filled to overflowing -with girls and bags, and here and there the rumble of hoofs mixed in, as -a pair of horses drawing an old-fashioned cab likewise laden dashed off. - -Peggy and Katherine were panting. It had become a very exciting race. A -taller girl, with a lighter suit-case, sprinted ahead of them and -reached the taxi first. But she stopped to ask the driver his price, and -while she was doing so Katherine and Peggy piled in. - -The taller girl turned to take her rightful place and saw two hot and -beaming young ladies in the exact corner she had run so hard to claim. - -She stepped back with a chagrined laugh, and Peggy and Katherine laughed -too, with the utmost good nature, now that they had attained what they -sought. They heard the other two occupants of their car murmuring the -names of college houses to the chauffeur, and with a thrill of pride -Peggy said, "Ambler House." - -"And you, miss?" the driver asked Katherine. - -"Why, Ambler House, too, of course," she said, and then blushed scarlet -for fear the other girls would think her an idiot, for at the moment it -had indeed seemed to her that even a taxi-cab driver ought to know that -she was going to live in college wherever Peggy was. - -The quaint, prim streets of the New England town were nothing but so -much colored confusion to the eyes of the four in the cab. Each one had -a consciousness that this perhaps was the height of life: that they -would never touch anything better than this again. Riding along thus, -packed tight in a taxi, through Hampton, to college for the first time. - -They felt as if all previous experiences were washed away--and all -future ones unknown and unguessed at. Everything was before them--the -glory of being young singing in their hearts and going to their heads -like wine--what wonder that they felt life had been made just for them -and was already beginning to yield its fruits into their eager hands! - -The cab went grating up a hill, and in a moment there was a bright -stretch of green before them, with any number of red brick buildings on -it, some of them covered with ivy. Hampton College was spread before -their gaze without any warning to prepare them. But each girl knew, as -if she had seen it often, that this was really College. - -Katherine and Peggy craned their necks quite frankly out of the window, -and when they drew their heads in, the other girls followed their -example shamelessly. - -"It looks--nice," ventured Peggy, with a long sigh of satisfaction. - -"It looks just--the way I thought it would," answered one of the -strangers, and then gave a little embarrassed laugh because her voice -had sounded so thrilled. - -The taxi made a sharp turn, and they were actually inside the sacred -precincts of Campus--there on each side were the rows of college houses, -and in the distance was a magnificent structure of stone. The morning -sun shone over it all. A sense of homelikeness and a strange comfortable -feeling of love for it came, even at this first view, into their hearts. - -"We are to live in one of these houses," Peggy rapturously reminded -Katherine. "In a moment the taxi will stop and it will be _our_ house. -Katherine, pinch my arm. It all seems so queerly familiar, maybe I'm -just dreaming it after all." - -But the taxi did stop in a minute or two, and the driver was opening the -door and saying "Ambler House" in a matter-of-fact tone. The two other -girls nodded good-bye to Peggy and Katherine. Katherine stepped down and -was handed her bag. Peggy was conscious that the long porch of the brick -house before which they had drawn up was filled with girls interestedly -watching for freshman newcomers. She thought of their plan to make a -good initial impression, and descended as gracefully as might be, with a -charming little smile of eagerness and anticipation that was not assumed -at all. - -The driver was lifting down her heavy suit-case. And then quite -unexpectedly came the fall that follows pride. Only, while the pride had -been Peggy's, the fall was her suit-case's. - -Thump! Thud! it went smashing down to the ground, and its bulging sides -flew apart, and hair-brushes, mirrors, nightgown, kimono, and powder -boxes and tooth paste all shot out in every direction and rolled -ignominiously about on the campus lawn, in full view of the crowded -porch of Ambler House. - -Peggy's crimson ears caught shrieks of laughter, her tear-filled eyes -saw girlish figures doubling up in mirth--and under her feet and round -about, the ground was white with powder, redolent with oozing perfume -and strewn with her most intimate belongings. - -There was something about it all that had the awful publicity of a -nightmare. Such things couldn't really happen. Oh, if she could only -melt away--or wake up or even crawl back into the taxi and hide. - -"Shall I help you pick the things up?" - -"I'm afraid this powder can never be scraped up again. I've put some -back into the box, but there's quite a bit of grass and gravel mixed -with it." - -She was completely surrounded by helpful girls, who had flown out from -the porch, their laughter still on their lips, and were now kneeling and -stooping everywhere about the scene of the catastrophe. - -"Your clean shirtwaist," cried one of these helpers sympathetically, as -she pulled a fragile bit of dimity and Cluny lace from under the -taxi-cab where it had fluttered. "It won't be good for very much now -until it's laundered." - -Into the suit-case the things were tumbled with despatch but not -neatness. The taxi driver was contrite, but he did not offer to touch -any of the scattered feminine luggage and insisted quite audibly that -there had been "too many things in there anyway." - -Katherine paid him, eying him reproachfully, and he chugged away, -leaving the two heart-broken freshmen greatly discomfited by the mishap. - -Thus it was that the two girls who had hoped to make so attractive an -impression slunk into Ambler House with a straggling procession of merry -followers behind them carrying odds and ends that refused to be crammed -back into the damaged suit-case. And thus it came about also that they -looked about Suite 22 with blind eyes and failed to realize that it was -one of "the grandest suites on Campus" and overlooked Paradise. - -Peggy sat down in a little heap on the window seat in their living-room -and didn't even appreciate that it _was_ a window seat, and one of very, -very few at college. - -"I'm glad it--didn't happen in Springfield," was the first thing Peggy -said. - -"Ye-es," admitted Katherine, standing uncertainly in the middle of the -room. And then she added irrelevantly: "I think there are awfully nice -girls in this house." - -Peggy buried her little burning face in the upholstery of the window -seat. "Do--you?" she asked in muffled tones. "I didn't dare look at -them." - -"I thought they seemed a very--_jolly_ set," pursued Katherine -tentatively. - -She was rewarded by a rueful chuckle from the figure on the window seat. - -"And anyway," Katherine followed up her advantage, "they _did notice_ -us,--more than they do most freshmen. Paid rather particular attention, -in fact." - -That was too much for happy-go-lucky little Peggy and she laughed until -she shook, even while the contradictory tears ran forth from her swollen -eyes and trickled through her fingers onto the green leather -seat-cushion. - -"I--I'll--never go down to luncheon, Kathie," she protested between a -laugh and a sob. "I'll never go outside this room again. I can't -possibly bear to look them in the face." - -Rap-tap-tap! - -Katherine whirled toward the door and Peggy sat up. - -Rap-tap-_tap_! It was more insistent this time, and the knob of the door -turned even as Peggy called out a none too cordial "Come" that broke -pathetically in the middle. - -A dark-haired girl entered impetuously, a sparkle in her friendly eyes. -Peggy remembered her with an inward qualm as one of the most -appreciative spectators on the porch a few moments ago. - -"Aren't you folks _crazy_ about your rooms? Have you seen the view over -Paradise? It's wonderful. I've been wondering who would have these. I -live right across the hall--and I--I----" - -Those sparkling eyes fairly danced now, and Peggy became aware of a tiny -package being thrust forward by the pretty visitor. - -"I saw yours was trampled, so I brought you some tooth-paste!" finished -the girl, to their amazement. - -She had scarcely left them, swinging mentally between indignation and -bewildered gratitude, when a pair of girls came unceremoniously in upon -them without knocking at all, and stood hesitating before them, arms -entwined about each other and holding something half out of sight. - -"I always think it's a ghastly thing to be without powder," one of them -finally mustered the courage to say, "and I came away with two boxes. -It's rice powder, flesh tint,--I hope you like that as well as white; -and I brought you some--and a chamois. Yours was muddy. I picked it up, -but I parted with it again. I knew you wouldn't possibly want it,--it -couldn't make your face anything but _black_." - -"And here's a--waist." The other was speaking now. "I thought you might -be--traveling light, and--since nobody's trunks have come, please wear -this down to luncheon. It's my _best_ one, so I won't deprecate it at -all. I think it's a darling, and if you'll give it its first wearing, -I'll be only too happy." - -Katherine glanced across at Peggy and smiled. Her room-mate was wiping -away the last gleam of moisture from her eyes, and the inner sunlight of -her spirit was beginning to shine through the gloom. - -She rose and went toward the girls, but they laid their offerings on a -chair and withdrew. While Peggy was looking after them appreciatively, -another stranger entered on a similar mission. - -For fifteen minutes, while Peggy and Katherine were making themselves -presentable for luncheon, the gift-bearers kept coming, leaving their -present on the dressing-table in the bedroom or the window seat in the -living-room, sometimes saying nothing at all, and sometimes a great -deal. - -"You won't mind going down now?" Katherine asked. - -"N-not so much," admitted Peggy, putting dabs of perfume out of various -bottles here and there on her cheered-up countenance, on her fluffy -gold-brown hair, and on the new waist, contributed. - -For at least six girls had brought perfume and loyal Peggy meant to have -one represented just as truly as another, so she followed this neutral -course of using all,--with a resulting odor that was anything but -neutral. - -As she went into the big dining-room, each giver could distinctly -discern the pervading sweetness of her own scent bottle and was -satisfied. - -It seemed to Peggy that every face was lifted and turned toward her as -she and Katherine came in. There was a temptation to walk with lowered -eyes, and sink into the seat the head waitress might indicate, without -meeting a single person's gaze. - -But casting this desire aside, she went in bravely, her eyes taking in -the whole room. And every girl smiled back at her with the very essence -of friendship and proprietorship, for there was hardly a girl in the -room who had not contributed something that the radiant freshman was -even then wearing, or had just made use of. - -So Peggy did not have to wait until the others in her house had learned -to love her, but she was taken from the first day into their hearts. And -she felt the warmth of their love around her even while she went through -so prosaic a ceremony as the partaking of a meager college luncheon. - - - - -CHAPTER II--SUITE 22 - - -It was right in the middle of Freshman Rains. - -The faces of the new girls appeared white and mournful, pressed against -the dormitory windows, or flushed and laughing from between rubber -helmets and slickers out on the campus, according to their dispositions. - -Up and down the second floor corridor of Ambler House trooped the usual -forenoon procession, umbrella tips clicking on the polished boards: -those who were going out to classes making a flapping sound with their -rubber garments, those returning giving out a sloshing noise that -advertised the weather outside in an unfavorable manner. - -Before several of the doors wet umbrellas were open on the floor to dry, -while tiny rivulets trickled steadily from the steel prongs. They looked -like big black bats which had flown in to seek shelter from the outer -torrents and might be expected to take wing again at any minute. - -It was not a hilarious atmosphere at best, but, to add to its dripping -depression, two wails of a most long-drawn and lugubrious sort began to -be wafted down the length of the hall over the tops of the wet -umbrellas, drifting in heart-brokenly through the students' doors, and -dying away in receding cadences whenever a disconsolate head lifted -itself from a cushion to listen or a helmet strap was shoved back from a -surprised and inquisitive ear. - -"M--MMm-MO-O-Oh," went the wail, and then "Moo-oo-oo," with a pastoral -significance that was particularly mystifying. - -No use for any girl to tell herself that this was the wind howling--or -the rain dejectedly descending on a tin roof--for no wind ever howled so -precisely up and down scales with such sobbingly human and barnyard -notes, and no rain was ever known to be so surprisingly vocal, nor so -loud and threatening one moment and so tremulously broken and far away -the next. - -"Go! Gug-gug-go! Gug-gug-GO-go-go!" screamed the dual wail, apparently -expressive of the utmost suffering, and yet, through it all, maintaining -a baffling rhythmical quality and a monotony of utterance that sent a -shuddering wonder in its wake as it coursed down the hall. - -But during such a disheartening season as Freshman Rains the spirit of -investigation is not keen, and the residents on the second floor -preferred to distract their attention by lessons that must be learned or -by long and rambling letters home that ended with vague hints that -somebody in their house was being killed down the hall. - -It was not until the voices broke out into wild and mirthless laughter -that their apathetic spirits were aroused to protest. - -"Goodness, girls, what's that awful noise?" an indignant brown head -poked itself out from one of the umbrella-guarded doors and sent its -peevish remonstrance down the corridor. In an instant every door framed -a face--or two faces--and a babble of questions was echoed back and -forth. - -But triumphantly right through the shrill notes of their eager queries -rang the weird and displeasing sound that had so disturbed them. - -"Ha-HA! Ho-HO! He-HEE! Haw-HAW!" - -"It's too much!" averred the girl who had spoken first. "_Where_ is that -sound being made? And _what_ is it? Seems to me as if it were from Suite -22--do you think somebody is torturing those freshmen?" It was just what -everybody did think, but they dreaded the admission. "Let's go in -there," the girl continued, "and--and find out." She ended rather -weakly, shrinking before the task of investigating so unearthly a sound -as that. - -The girls were flocking forth, some still in their damp slickers, the -rain glistening on them; others all immaculate just as they were ready -to start out to recitations: and still a lazy third contingent, who had -not yet had any classes or who were wantonly cutting them, as sweet as -flowers in Japanese silk kimonos and little pattering slippers. - -Together they made the charge on Door 22. - -Crowding in at the breach as it swung open, they gasped in sudden -bewilderment at the sight that met their eyes. - -Standing rigidly side by side like two soldiers on parade, but with -their hands solemnly placed upon their diaphragms while they emitted -simultaneously the weird noises that had alarmed the house, were Peggy -Parsons and Katherine Foster, the idols of Ambler House! - -Their eyes widened at the wholesale intrusion and their hands fell -limply to their sides, and then, as the indignant chorus broke out -around them, they looked at each other in crimson confusion and burst -out laughing. - -"Why--c-could you h-h-hear us, g-girls?" cried Katherine incoherently -through her shaking spasms of mirth. - -"Hear you?" echoed Hazel Pilcher, who had led the charge upon them. -"Hear? Well, my _dears_, did you think you were exactly whispering? I -never listened to so awful a concert in my life. It's a wonder I didn't -call the house-matron. Oh, you incorrigible youngsters, what in the -world was it?" - -Peggy's face assumed an aggrieved expression immediately. - -"It was only our lesson," she responded somewhat sulkily. - -"Lesson! My goodness, what are they giving the freshmen now that their -lessons turn out to be imitations of a menagerie? Why, when I was a -freshman"--(with a very superior air, for Hazel Pilcher was now enjoying -all the glory of a sophomore's exalted position)--"we had Latin and -French and math and history, but I never heard of a course in ghostly -noises. I'm sure that in my year they at least spared us that." - -"Just the samey that was our lesson," Peggy persisted, "that was our -practice work for to-morrow's yell." - -"Do you mean----?" Hazel began to understand, for one cannot be a -sophomore without knowing most of the abbreviations in which college -terminology abounds. - -"Elocution, if we have to simplify it," said Peggy. "I suppose you girls -didn't take that course. Well, Katherine and I are just--taking it for -all it's worth. I guess we want to learn to speak correctly and place -our voices right from the diaphragm and make full and open tones----" - -"Spare muh!" interposed a senior who was known to be already practicing -up for dramatics. "I hear nothing but that sort of thing all day long -these days. I might have guessed what your vocal gymnastics meant--but -they were so particularly horrible----" - -"Well, the worse they sound the better they are," murmured Peggy, -deprecatingly. "And I thought myself we did it rather well." - -Elocution, or, as the girls called it with enthusiasm, yellocution or -yell, was an elective course that entailed no studying, but a vast deal -of labor along a different line. The victims who were beguiled into -taking it, thinking to gain an easy course minus mental effort, that -would count nevertheless a perfectly good two hours a week for their -degree, were often mere tearful wrecks after the first few days when -they were stood up before an enormous, gaping class and put through test -after test to the running accompaniment of wounding comment on their -enunciation, their manner, their throats, their gestures--everything. - -They became acquainted for the first time with all the distressful -mystery of larynxes and pharynxes--which most of them had always -supposed were the names of diseases--they learned about diaphragms, too, -and were forced to breathe in different ways and shout and cry "Ha-ha," -all the time feeling for the muscular hammer stroke at their waist -lines. It was so embarrassing to Peggy at first that she couldn't make -any sound at all when they told her to say "Ha-ha," and it was only -after three attempts that she managed a faint and disheartened squeak. - -"Your voice is little and thin," criticised the teacher sharply. "I -shall give you exercises to round it out." - -And that's what she had done, and these were what Peggy and her faithful -room-mate were practicing at the moment of the inrush of visitors. - -She explained to her guests how little and thin her voice was, but they -laughed scornfully and said if she had any more of a one, they'd see -that she was put off campus, that, as far as they were concerned, they -believed she had the biggest and the fattest voice on record, which -seemed to restore Peggy's self-respect in a way marvelous to behold. - -"A person can be happy," she assured them conversationally, "just so -long as she doesn't know anything about herself--how she talks, how she -looks or how she impresses other people. But the minute you get her -conscious of all these larynx-pharynx-diaphragm machines inside her -she'll never know another happy minute until she conquers them all and -can speak just like a Nazimova with 'em. Though Nazimova is rather -sobby, I'm told--maybe I'd better train myself up after Blanche Ring -instead." - -"Peggy," Katherine put in at this point questioningly, "don't you think -we might set the water over and give the girls some tea?" - -At this delightful prospect many of the girls--especially the little -lazy kimonoed ones--sat right down wherever they happened to be, in a -chair or on the floor, with such looks of blissful anticipation on their -faces that they were a pleasant sight. It wasn't often tea was served in -the middle of a rainy forenoon and the two Andrews freshmen were already -so practiced in little parties before they came to college, that even a -cup of tea served by them had a grace and an added interest, that it -could not have possessed in the rooms of girls who were just tasting -their first bit of life away from home. - -Peggy looked in some consternation at the comfortable crowd with its -expectant and gleeful expression, and demurred slowly. - -"I just _have_ to train my voice," she said, "but I suppose, even with -them here, I can go right on?" - -A groan greeted this proposal that was anything but complimentary. - -Peggy looked hurt. "Oh, you just wait," she said vindictively, but with -a laugh struggling for utterance at the same time. "Some day you'll pay -to hear me--see if you won't--and I mean to work at it right along all -through four years and then--and--then----" her voice grew dreamy and -her eyes stared off into a heavenly future, "and then maybe I can be in -the mob at senior dramatics!" - -The senior of the party laughed at the pretty compliment, for she -herself was only in the mob, and her classmates didn't think she had -such a marvelous success either--so it was pleasant to have the -adoration of a popular freshman. - -"I'm sure you will be," she said graciously, "and with one accord we all -accept the future mob member's invitation to tea." And she sat down with -the rest and waited patiently. - -With a sigh, Peggy lit the little alcohol lamp under the tea kettle and -Katherine dived mysteriously under the desk to emerge a moment later -with something that sent a general shout of approval through the entire -group. - -"A box! A box!" they cried, "Katherine has a box from home!" - -Nothing else in life possesses quite the wonder and the satisfying -delight of a real box from home. If the parents at home only knew of the -wide-eyed envy of all the girls as they cluster around one of these -brighteners of college existence as it is being opened, there would be a -continuous procession of expressmen tramping in at the back door of all -the college houses, week in and week out, and every single closet shelf -would hold its quota of jam jars, home-made cookies, and fine large -grape-fruit so that the same glow of satisfaction and sense of being -loved would abide in each girl's heart all the time. - -The tea ball was being daintily dipped in and out of the steaming cups, -the cold chicken was being eagerly passed down the line of girls, when -the door of suite 22 opened again and a confused and blushing stranger, -tall, with wonderful reddish hair and baby-blue eyes, stepped inside and -asked in a voice that was so full of fright that it would never have -passed in that elocution class of Peggy's, if this was Miss Katherine -Foster's room. - -"I'm trying to find Miss Foster," the scared voice went on, "because I -was to have roomed with her this year. I'm Gloria----" - -With a single bound, the impulsive Peggy had reached the beautiful -stranger and had thrown her arms around her neck. It was all her fault, -she was thinking, all her fault that this nice, nice girl had been -deprived of the finest room-mate on campus, for while Peggy and -Katherine were at Andrews Preparatory School, Peggy had not known that -she herself could go to college until the last minute, and Katherine had -already been assigned another room-mate. When Peggy had been given the -money to come, however, by old Mr. Huntington, her friend, Katherine had -written to Gloria Hazeltine--who stood before them now--and had -explained that she just must room with her own Peggy, and would Gloria -mind and she could easily find somebody else. - -Neither of the girls had seen Gloria before, but at this first glimpse -of her, Peggy's heart was warm with a sense of wanting to make up to her -for having taken her place, and hence the smothering arms she wrapped so -quickly around the newcomer's neck. - -All the embarrassment of the new guest fled at this surprisingly eager -reception. She drew back from Peggy's arms and smiled happily down into -her face. - -"Oh, oh," she cried, "I wish more than ever that you were my room-mate! -Which is Peggy Parsons that has taken you away from me?" - -Peggy at once saw the other's mistake and flushed. "I'm the guilty -party," she admitted. "I'm Peggy. But I want you please to like me a -little--anyway. And now----" suddenly changing to a business-like tone -of hospitality, "sit right down and have some tea. Girls, this is -Morning Glory, Katherine's and my best friend. You don't mind my calling -you that?" she inquired anxiously. "That's the way Katherine and I spoke -of you to ourselves and you--your looks bear it out so well," she -faltered. - -Gloria, very much taken into the Ambler House set, and already being -plied with tea and wonderful beaten biscuit, didn't mind anything, and -in a few minutes the whole room seemed to glow with a pervading -happiness and content that took no account of the gloomy weather -outside, and for this season at least the bugaboo ghost of the Freshman -Rains was laid. - - - - -CHAPTER III--PEGGY'S MASTERPIECE - - -Peggy was bending absorbedly over her desk one evening biting her pen -and then writing a bit and now and then crossing out part of what she -had written, all with a kind of seraphic smile that puzzled Katherine -more and more until she finally just had to speak about it. - -"What are you doing, room-mate?" she demanded; "that look is so--so -awfully unlike your usual expression." - -"Hush," said Peggy, glancing up and waving her pen solemnly toward the -other. "It's a poet's look." - -"A----? Peggy Parsons, you're rooming with me under false pretenses. If -you're going to turn into a genius I'm going home. You know I perfectly -hate geniuses and there are so many funny ones around college. I always -thought that at least you----" her tone was scathing and beseeching at -the same time, "at least you were immune." - -"Maybe I am," said Peggy speculatively. "What is it?" - -"What's what?" - -"Immune. Could a person be it without knowing it, do you suppose?" - -Katherine had thrown herself across the room and had kissed Peggy -fervently and repentantly at this remark. "Oh, I take it all back, -Peggy," she cried, "you're not a genius. They always understand every -word in the dictionary and you are--you are just a dear little dunce, -after all!" - -"Well, I like that!" exclaimed the injured young poet. "Let me read you -this, Katherine," she continued with shining eyes, "and then you'll -see--oh, Katherinekins, Katherinekins, what a bright room-mate you have, -and how proud you'll be of me to-morrow when Miss Tillotson reads this -out in English 13." - -Katherine glanced toward the inky manuscript suspiciously. - -"Is it very long?" she inquired. - -Peggy only shot her a reproachful glance and began to read in a sweet, -thrilly voice, that already showed the effects of strenuous elocution -training and would have made the veriest nonsense in the world seem -beautiful by reason of its triumphant youth and its perfect conviction. - - "Dreams that are dear--of night--of day-- - All I could think or hope or plan: - Naught is so sweet in that dream world's sway - As this wonderful hour of the Present's span. - -There was a silence in the room when she had finished, and Peggy folded -her manuscript up tenderly and laid it away on her desk with an air that -was little short of reverent. - -"How did you do it?" breathed Katherine, carried away by the magic of -the voice rather than by any clear idea of what the voice had read. But -she had a great deal of faith in Peggy, and anything she would read like -that must be very fine. So Katherine passed her judgment on it -immediately. - -"Do you like it?" Peggy pleaded, "oh, do you? Oh, I'm so glad. -It's--it's just a piece of my soul, Katherine." - -Katherine accompanied her room-mate to English 13 next day with a -pleasant sense of exhilaration in her heart, for wasn't this the day -Peggy was to be praised before them all--freshmen, sophomores, juniors -and seniors alike--for her wonderful poem? - -There was a little stir and flutter through Recitation room 27 as the -bright-eyed young literary lights of the college trooped in. - -English 13 had to be held in the largest recitation room on campus, for -it was the one class that everybody would rather go to than not. It was -purely elective with a number of divisions and you could walk by and -decide whether or not you wanted to go in--and you always decided to go -in. - -Grey sweaters over the backs of chairs, a blur of black furs, youthful -heads with hair all done alike, lolling arms along the chair-tops, slim -white hands toying with pencils or sweater buttons--a gigantic, lazy, -comfortable, enjoying-life sort of a class when you came in from the -back of the room, but as you went down toward the front and glanced -back, there was a light of eager anticipation shining in every face, a -universal expression of intelligent interest such as it is the fortune -of few college professors, alas, to behold in this world. - -Peggy and Katherine had dropped the wonderful poem in the 13 box outside -the door--it being written on pale-blue paper so that Peggy would -recognize it at once in the bundle that would soon be brought in, in -Miss Tillotson's arms. - -They sat as near the front as they could get, and that queer, -unaccountable, crimson uneasiness that affects authors when their work -is about to be read in public--part pleasurable but mostly agony--swept -Peggy in a miserable flood and she sat deaf, dumb and blind to all that -was going on around her until she heard the bell strike that announced -the opening of class. - -Miss Tillotson at this minute came in, her arms full of manuscript, as -usual, her glance moving lightly over the rustling audience of girls, -who were beginning to sit up straight with that eager interest flaming. -Miss Tillotson was always sure of a response. From the moment she -fingered the first manuscript and began to read in her wonderful voice -that made the good things seem so much better than they were and the bad -things so much worse, every pause she made, every raised-eye-brow query, -every slight little twist of amused smile was received with a collective -long-drawn breath, a murmur of appreciation or a small, sudden sweeping -storm of laughter that convulsed the entire giant class at once, only to -drop away suddenly to still attention as her voice again picked up the -thread of narrative or resumed the verse. - -It is a pity but true that Peggy heard absolutely nothing of her adored -13 to-day until her own blue-folded poem was lifted up. She had gone -through a hundred different emotions in the few minutes that she had -already spent in this classroom. Every time Miss Tillotson's fingers -lingered near her manuscript in selecting what next to read, a shiver of -despair went up and down her spine. Oh, why had she done such a thing? -She, only a freshman, to have had the effrontery to write a poem when -all these upper-classmen--and even the Monthly board members--were in -the class--and had written such wonderful things! Of course there was -the approval of Katherine by which she had set so much store a short few -hours ago. But--she glanced at Katherine now sitting so tranquilly -beside her. Katherine was only a freshman herself! What did her approval -mean? She hated herself for the disloyalty of the thought, but still she -could not help wishing that she had never shown the poem to Katherine -and then she could make out it was some one else's and not have to -suffer the awful humiliation---- - -Miss Tillotson was reading! Oh, it had actually come--this horrible -calamity! Nothing could happen to save her now. Her poor little blue -poem was being read out to all these wonderful girls of Hampton and she -could not prevent it. Drowning, drowning in a sea of confusion, there -drifted hazily through Peggy's mind a pathetic story she had once read -in a newspaper about a man whose ship was sinking and who had put a note -in a bottle, "All hope gone. Good-bye forever." - -When the smooth voice of Miss Tillotson stopped there was a slight -rustle over the class, and then with one accord the girls burst out into -a laugh. - -It was the merest ripple of enjoying titter, but in Peggy's crimson ears -it roared and echoed until the mocking sound of it was the one thing in -the world. She lifted her swimming eyes and kept them on Miss -Tillotson's face and even achieved a somewhat ghastly smile on her own -account, believing, poor child, that she could thus keep secret the -awful fact of her identity as the writer of that "thing"--the poem had -already descended to this title in her mind--and that neither Miss -Tillotson nor the girls need ever know. - -"If all that the writer could 'think or hope or plan' is expressed in -this particular--flight," smiled Miss Tillotson, with that dear little -quirk to her mouth that Peggy had loved so many times but which hurt -now, oh, beyond words to tell, "I should think that dream world of hers -would resemble a nightmare." - -Another gale of laughter swept the class, fluffy heads leaned back -against the chairs in abandon and shirt-waisted shoulders shook. - -Peggy felt that if Katherine looked at her or ventured a pat of sympathy -she would die. But Katherine, when Peggy's miserable glance sought her -face, was gazing interestedly around the room from literary light to -literary light as if to determine which could have been guilty of the -blue manuscript. It certainly was a brilliant way to ward off detection -from her room-mate and Peggy was grateful. - -Peggy hardly knew how she got home that day. She and Katherine did not -speak until they had gained the safety of their own suite and then they -put a "Busy" sign on the door, and sat down on their couch. - -"Katherine," said Peggy at last, "one of two things must happen now. -Either I shall never touch pen to paper again or I'll keep at writing -until I make a success of it and show Miss Tillotson that I can after -all." - -"Yes, room-mate," agreed Katherine solemnly, "that's the only -alternative open to you now." - -The tragic whiteness of Peggy's face deepened. - -"Never again, or--never give it _up_ until I've made good," she -murmured. "It might mean--more times like this, Katherine, if I kept -on," she reminded tentatively. - -"Yes, Peggy," Katherine answered slowly, "I think it _would_ mean more -times like this." - -"And nothing but my own determination to go on,--no reason to think I -have any particular talent or ability--she has already taken away all -that notion. Just the will to do it whether I can or not--to show her -that I can." - -"Yes," agreed Katherine once more, "that's all you'd have to go on. _I_ -think you are good at writing, but then I think you can do anything. I -can't write myself, so my opinion really isn't so very valuable. You'd -have to do it without encouragement." - -"I want her respect, Katherine; I want to have her think in the end that -I'm the best writer that ever took Thirteen, but--it would mean giving -most of my time and all my energies to my English--and I might not turn -out any good in the end." - -"True," Katherine again attacked her room-mate's problem, "and if you -never touch pen to paper again" (the phrase had them both) "you can soon -forget this hurt to-day and you need not put yourself in a similar -position again, and your main work can go to--well, to math or anything -else." - -Peggy paced up and down the room and Katherine, never doubting but that -this was the most serious problem that had ever been fought out in -college, followed her room-mate's figure with eyes that brimmed with -sympathy and a heartful of affectionate loyalty that longed to be of -help and could not. - -"Say, Peggy," she said suddenly, "I want to take a note over to the -note-room for one of the girls in my Latin class. Don't you want to come -along? This doesn't have to be decided all at once, does it?" - -Peggy silently slipped on her sweater again and the girls ran across the -campus to the big recitation hall and thence down the basement steps to -the note-room. Crowds of girls were swarming into and out of this place -where, on little boards--one to each class--the girls left their -communications for each other under the proper initials. In so large a -college it was necessary to have some easy and direct means of reaching -each other without delay or the expense of telephone or postage. Every -girl went to the note-room once every day--and a particularly popular -one ran down after each class to gather in the sheaves of invitations, -business notes, and club meeting announcements that were sure to be -hers. - -Peggy and Katherine squeezed through the crowds, greeting many other -freshmen as they were suddenly brought face to face, and at length they -stood before the freshman bulletin and Katherine stuck her note in the -rack at the letter R, while Peggy glanced, from habit, back to her own -initial. There were many little important-looking notes stuck upright -over the letter P, and Peggy fingered them over listlessly. Delia -Porter, Helen Pearson, Margaret Perry and so on, until all at once from -the most inviting looking of all leaped her own name, Peggy Parsons, in -perfectly unfamiliar writing--writing almost too assured to be that of a -freshman at all. - -Wonderingly she unfolded the little square, and then, jammed in by the -other girls as she was, she flung her arms around Katherine's neck and -cried out with a sob of joy, "Oh, kiss me, Katherine!--they want my poem -for the _Monthly_!" - -From dull gray the world leaped to glowing radiance. For a freshman to -be invited to give a poem to the _Monthly_! Her great problem was solved -automatically, and Peggy would be an author from that time forth until -she should be graduated. - -"Let's see your note," urged Katherine, when they were out of the crowd -once more. "I want to look at it myself." - -Peggy eagerly unfolded the precious thing again and read, while -Katherine looked over her shoulder: - - "_My dear Miss Parsons_--or wouldn't it be more like college to - say Peggy?--I'm writing to ask you if we may not have for the - _Monthly_ that little poem of yours that was read in Thirteen - to-day? There are some changes in four of the lines, and if - you'll come over to my room this afternoon, I want you to make - them yourself so that there will be as little as possible of my - scribbling in it. Hoping to see you, - - - _Ditto Armandale_, _Monthly Board_, - _Room 11, Macefield House_." - - - -"Why, Peggy, do you remember that Ditto Armandale we met that day last -year while you were standing under the waterfalls? And it was the sight -of her and all those other Hampton girls that first made you want to -come here! Miss Armandale invited me to come and see her that day, when -I should get to Hamp, and she said you were just the sort that ought to -come here--oh, isn't it _fine_, Peggy!" - -"Yes, but look here," said Peggy, who was still reading over her note, -"she says 'changes in four of the lines.' There were only four lines -_in_ it, Katherine, you remember." - -"That's queer. But I'd go anyway." - -"Of course I will,--I don't suppose she'll remember me, but I'm glad -she's the one, she looked so nice and considerate that day." - -"What are you going to wear?" - -"It's an invitation house. I suppose a person ought to be awfully -dressy," Peggy said doubtfully. - -"I don't know," murmured Katherine. "I shouldn't think it would be -necessary to dress much if you were just one of the multitude like me. -But being one of the youngest authors in college, it's different with -you." - -With arms around each other's shoulders, the room-mates strolled back -across the campus toward Ambler House. The sunlight shone over the -campus and over the moving army of girls going in every direction across -it, for it was just at the end of recitation hour. None of them wore -hats, so that the light gleamed down on their hair. Most of them wore -white sweaters or sport coats, and under the arm of each was tucked a -notebook or a stack of study volumes. - -All of them walked in pairs, as Katherine and Peggy were doing, or in -laughing groups that gathered numbers as they went on. - -Peggy and Katherine began to have an intimate sense of belonging to it -all. Hampton was becoming _their_ college in a way it had not been -before. This campus and those red brick buildings, those laughing crowds -of girls, their hair blowing in the wind--these things were to represent -their whole world for four years, and, tightening their hands on each -other's shoulders, they were glad it was to be so. - -And Peggy held crushed in her free hand a tiny wad of paper, the -tangible evidence that this first year promised success to her. - - - - -CHAPTER IV--NEW PAINT AND POETRY - - -A summons to visit an invitation house! - -And on such a gratifying mission! Peggy smiled as she slipped into her -rose-colored taffeta, and Katherine, watching her with pride, decided -that "the poet's look" had come back. - -"Well, good luck, room-mate," she called as Peggy went out the door, and -she received one radiant glance in answer from the departing young bard. - -The pleasantly warm tone of the rose-colored taffeta buoyed up the new -genius' spirit all across the campus until she came out into Green -Street and beheld the imposing reality of Macefield House directly -before her. - -She had the fleeting and snobbish wish that all the girls of her class -could see her turning thus assuredly up the walk to the famous senior -house. To be sure, she couldn't help casting a cold look of disapproval -at the porch--it was the messiest porch she had seen anywhere in -Hampton, but she supposed the celebrity inhabitants of Macefield were -all too busy with their dinners and dances and social duties generally -to notice how careless and extremely--impromptu--the approach to their -home appeared. - -The campus house porches all had chairs out on them and comfortable -magazine tables--there were still a lot of hot fall days to look forward -to--but on the Macefield House porch there was nothing. And somebody had -carelessly left an old ladder lying down right in front of the steps! -Peggy had a very hard time scrambling over it. Perhaps it was just as -well the other Freshman girls weren't there to see her after all. She -must admit there was considerable loss of dignity involved in scrambling -over an old paint-specked ladder that was so completely in her way. - -Her face was flushed to the color of her dress when she finally climbed -the steps. Even in her confusion she noticed that the porch floor looked -strangely _new_ and that it seemed to have a tendency to cling a little -and impede her footsteps. - -"It's probably because I'm getting scared that I imagine my feet stick -to the boards," she mused uncomfortably. "I don't know how a person -should act at an invitation house. Whether you're supposed to walk right -in or----" - -That part of her problem was settled immediately, for she found the door -locked. Gathering what self-confidence she could, she pressed the bell. - -Uneasily she shifted from one to the other of the sticking feet. No one -came. She knew it was rude to ring twice, but she felt she would never -have the heart to come again if she didn't see the great editor of the -Monthly now and get everything arranged. So she pressed a shaking finger -nervously against the bell, and held it so until she heard a rustling -inside the house. The door opened--just a crack--and a surprised head -poked itself into view. Peggy had a jumbled and confused impression all -at once. She was aware of the speechless amazement in the eyes, also -that the face was not that of a girl at all, but belonged to a rather -severe looking and decidedly middle-aged woman. - -With a little jump of her heart she realized that she was meeting the -gaze of the matron of Macefield House. Campus house matrons were -regarded in the light either of common enemies or motherly souls, whose -hearts responded to all college-girls' troubles. But what might the -matron of an invitation house be like? Peggy thought she must be -something incomparably greater. - -"Is Miss Armandale in?" she asked weakly. - -"She may be, but she'd be up in her room," answered the head -ungraciously enough, while its owner apparently did not intend to admit -the enemy within the fortifications, since no move was made to open the -door wider. - -"Well----" murmured Peggy, with a sudden realization that she was -standing in wet paint,--"shall I--go up--and--and find out?" - -"By the back door if you wish," said the head witheringly. "If you came -in this way, you'd _Track in the Paint_." - -Peggy's heart leaped. A crimson tide went over her. She shut her eyes -before the accusing and indignant gaze of the matron. - -So that was what the ladder had been for, and any stupid but she would -have known! With dread she looked back along the porch the way she had -come and there, sure enough, was a procession of marring footprints in -the new grey of the flooring! - -She had climbed with great difficulty over the barrier that had been -deliberately placed there to prevent such a thing. - -And Ditto and the other girls of the house would have to have the porch -all done over on account of a silly freshman. For the girls in the -invitation houses carried their own expenses, leasing their houses and -then conducting them like any tenants. - -"I will go 'round the back way, then," she gasped to the glowering -matron. Her one thought was to escape the baneful glare of those eyes. - -Her feet stuck firmly when she tried to go and as she was lifting them -up with a generous accompaniment of Macefield House paint, the door -banged behind her and she was left to make her humiliating way back as -she had come, with the ladder to be surmounted again, and her eyes so -full of tears of embarrassment that she could hardly see to walk. - -She had no intention of going around the back way. Her only desire was -to get home. - -She must face again the guns of the enemy--for that wonderful poem -mustn't be lost to the _Monthly_--but she would make her charge after -she had rested once more in the trenches of Suite 22, and had equipped -her army of one with a new uniform. - -For that was the plan that was already taking shape in her mind. She -would return in disguise. She had sallied forth in her brightest and -best. Well, she would go back as meek as a freshman should, in plain -clothes--and who would know she was the young stupid who had scaled the -step-ladder and marred the new grey paint of the invitation house? - -"Well," said Katherine, yawning up at her lazily from the couch, when -she was once more within the home walls, "how did it go, room-mate?" - -"How did what go?" inquired Peggy, kicking off her pumps hastily and -sliding them out of sight, under the dressing table. - -"Why, the interview with the great Ditto. You make me tired, -Peggy--acting just as though you were bored by the best thing that's -happened to either of us yet. And really and truly, you're just as glad -as I am for you. Admit that you are." - -"Not--so wildly," Peggy made a little grimace, as she flung the -rose-colored silk dress into a corner. A moment later her muffled voice -came from the bed room, where she was fumbling among her dresses. "I -never can find anything I want." - -"Are you looking for your kimono? Going to rest a while, before we get -dressed for dinner? Your kimono's under the bed, Peggy; I saw the blue -edge sticking out. Hurry back in here and tell me the news; I'm consumed -with curiosity." - -Peggy came back into the study, wearing a blue serge skirt, her head -lost to view in a middy blouse in the process of being slipped on. She -struggled to the top at last and peered out with pleading eyes. - -"Will you go over there with me, Katherine?" she said in a tone she -strove to make indifferent. - -"Go over there with you? Haven't you been?" - -"I want your company," Peggy stammered with difficulty, unable to tell -the fib that would have been a direct answer to her room-mate's -question. - -"Well," said Katherine, getting up slowly and stretching her arms, "I -should say I will." - -And so Peggy, her army reinforced, began her march on Macefield House a -second time. - -If Katherine was surprised at her simplified costume, she made no -comment, but held her arm chummily all the way over, and Peggy felt that -victory was in sight. - -"Look, they've painted their porch," she said in assumed surprise, when -they came in sight of the fateful ladder. - -"So they have," cried Katherine, "and we can't get up _that_ way." - -And then she began to titter. - -"What's the matter?" demanded Peggy quickly. - -"Somebody--somebody--_did_ go up anyway," Katherine laughed delightedly. -"There are footprints all over it! Oh, mustn't the Macefield House girls -be furious?" - -Peggy was silent. - -"Don't you think that's funny?" her room-mate insisted, still laughing. - -"Perfectly _simple_," returned Peggy. "Some people haven't a bit of -sense. I imagine it was some--some delivery boy, don't you?" - -"More likely a freshman. Delivery boy with those little feet? How -ridiculous--as if he'd wear high heels!" - -"Katherine, you're a regular Sherlock Holmes," Peggy protested. - -"I believe I could ferret out the criminal," persisted Katherine. "I've -thought of a good clue." - -"How would you do it?" Peggy's voice was little more than a whisper. - -"Look on the bottoms of all the freshmen's shoes for paint," announced -her friend. - -"Katherine!" - -"Yes?" - -"Last year you and I were detectives and we found out things together, -which did people good. But do you think--after our partnership then, it -is right for you to go--looking things up all by yourself without me, -now?" - -"How perfectly silly of you," laughed Katherine; "of course you'd have -to help. You could look at the shoes of the girls on one side of the -campus, and I'd take our side. Anyway it's all in fun. I suppose we'd -better go around the back way, don't you think so?" - -Peggy thought so, decidedly. In a few moments they were climbing the -dark back stairs to the room of the great _Monthly_ editor on the second -floor. - -The door of Number 11 stood part way open and showed a delightful and -luxurious confusion within. Peggy and Katherine got a glimpse of tall -red roses, Oriental couch cover, and a profusion of pillows, old bronze -bric-a-brac, green leather banners, scattered books and manuscripts, -with the inevitable Mona Lisa enigmatically smiling down at it all from -the opposite wall of the room. - -Peggy and Katherine, after a light knock, advanced into the room and -seated themselves on the inviting couch. - -"A book-case and a dictionary," murmured Peggy. "Such funny things to -have at college." - -"But there's a tea table, too," reminded Katherine. "In fact, I never -saw a room that had such a varied assortment of things--and all in -harmony." - -"I like that leather peacock screen," Peggy went on. - -"Oh, I love it all--but don't you think it's the least bit oppressive? -That incense smell lulls my senses to sleep. I don't see how Ditto can -be the fresh, breezy sort she is,--perfectly matter-of-fact and -everydayish,--and live in an opium den of a room like this." - -"It isn't just what her character would lead you to expect," admitted -Peggy. - -Just then, a girl drifting aimlessly by in the hall paused at the door, -and glanced in curiously at the two freshmen sitting so stiffly, toes -out, hands clasped in their laps, awaiting the all-important Ditto. - -"Dit know you're here?" she asked, with friendly brevity. - -Both girls shook their heads. - -"I'll get her," said the other, disappearing, and an instant later they -heard, up and down the hall, the loud cry, "_Dit-to! Di-i-t Armandale_! -Somebody to see you!" - -From the third floor came a scrambling noise, then the sound of light -feet tapping on the stairs. - -"Well, you really did come, you children," gasped the owner of the room, -coming in flushed from her hasty descent and blowing a wavy strand of -golden hair from her face. - -She plumped down between them on the couch and looked from one to the -other with an air of delighted proprietorship. - -"And you're beginning just right, too, as I knew you would. Thirteen is -the open road to glory, here, and you certainly were courageous, handing -in a poem first thing." - -Her hand reached for Peggy's knee. "How do you like everything, now -you're here, and why haven't you been over before?" - -"We didn't think you'd remember us," said Peggy. - -"There was so much water that day you saw us, at the picnic last -year----" - -Ditto threw back her head and laughed. "Yes, there was plenty of that," -she agreed. "I never saw anything so moist as you were. And -you--Katherine Foster--yes, I remember your names, too,--I chose you for -a friend of mine that day. And I'm positively insulted that neither of -you accepted my invitation to come to see me, until I dragged you here -on business. Your poem, Peggy,--here it is, I kept it out for you----" - -She had risen and lifted the blue-folded paper from a pile of thick -stories and "heavies" on the table. And Peggy, watching the nonchalant -way she handled the sacred _Monthly_ material, felt her admiration -increasing. - -"Now," said Ditto, bending over the page with complete concentration, -"let's see just what we want to do--I thought that possibly----" - -And her sturdy little blue pencil crept mercilessly through word after -word, while Peggy felt the blood pounding into her face and tried not to -mind the kindly criticism of her effort. - -Peggy was consulted tactfully about each change and asked for -suggestions, until, under the skilful guidance of the more experienced -writer, the fledgling really developed a verse that would not mar the -_Monthly_ pages. Then Ditto gave her a pen and some paper to write it -all out again, in the copy that was actually to go to the printer. - -Katherine talked to Ditto about her room-mate, while the latter was -carefully rewriting her masterpiece. - -"You know you've got good material for freshman president, there," said -Ditto with something of senior condescension. "An Andrews girl usually -has it, and she's the right type. She isn't very self-conscious, she's -lots of fun and ready for anything. You can tell that. Why don't you put -her up? Your elections are this week, aren't they? Honestly, I've heard -of nothing but Peggy Parsons, Peggy Parsons, from all the freshmen -protegees of the girls in this house." - -Katherine caught fire. "It would be great," she said. "Think of rooming -with the class president. Oh, I did a clever thing in bringing her to -Hampton. I can shine in reflected glory through the whole four years." - -"You do it," urged Ditto, "get her elected, I mean. I'll help." - -She nodded carelessly toward the huge vase of roses. "I have quite a few -little freshmen friends whom I'll--tell about Peggy." - -When Peggy handed back the poem with a rueful smile at its many changes, -Katherine got up from the couch and took her room-mate's arm. It would -never do to linger, though it was hard to leave the great Presence. - -Peggy's look as they left the house held simply pleasure and gratitude, -but Katherine's brimmed with meaning. - -"You don't know what I know," she hummed. - -"Then why not tell me?" laughed Peggy. - -"I know who's going to be freshman president!" - -"Who?" - -"Shan't tell you--but I suppose you'll find out when it happens." - -"Well," retorted Peggy unexpectedly, "I know already." - -"What's--her--name?" gasped Katherine. - -"Gloria Hazeltine," answered Peggy. - -Katherine stopped and caught her shoulders. Facing her, she studied her -calm expression of certainty. - -"Why, Peggy," she couldn't help saying, "it was going to be _you_, and I -was going to start this very day to campaign for you." - -"Me!" scoffed Peggy. "I couldn't even _look_ like a president. The -freshman president stands for the whole class, and the sophs and juniors -and seniors are apt to judge us a good deal by the one we choose for -that office. They'd think what flyaways the freshmen are if you had any -one like me. Or rather they'd never notice us at all, but would sever -diplomatic relations. But Gloria now----" - -The vision of the tall, radiant young Westerner, with her red-gold hair -and her wide, laughing, blue eyes--the way she talked, the way she wore -her clothes, her charm and sincerity of manner--rose vividly in -Katherine's mind. She compared this vision with the actual striking -little figure of her room-mate, with the flickering dimples showing and -disappearing and the warm light that always lay in the depths of her -black eyes. - -"I--don't--know," she said honestly. "Gloria is wonderful--but you, -Peggy, you're so dear." - -"I'll give all I have to the class," cried Peggy, opening her arms, as -if to embrace every girl of the four hundred and fifty freshmen, "but I -don't have to be set up in the post of honor to do it." - -"But Andrews usually has the presidency," ventured Katherine in a -troubled tone. "Ditto Armandale reminded me that our school has always -carried off everything, Freshman year. It's _expected_." - -"We're not Andrews now, we're Hampton," said Peggy gravely. "Don't you -remember the signs in the moving picture shows, from Wilson's -proclamation? Something about 'whatever country you came from, you are -an American now.'" - -"Well, the president-elect is dead, long live the president-elect," -capitulated Katherine reluctantly. - -"Good. I really feel that I owe her an awful lot for taking you away -from her," smiled Peggy, grown light-hearted once more. "Being president -wouldn't half make up." - -Katherine laughed her gratified surprise and began to plan how to draw -the solid Andrews vote, in favor of a girl who was not from Andrews. - -"I'm going to have a party for Gloria," Peggy mused, "and invite every -single freshman in the catalogue. You'll have to help me write the notes -to stick up on the bulletin board. And we'll say, 'To meet the freshman -class president,' and freshmen are such sheep, they'll think she's as -good as elected." - -"Sheep yourself," flared Katherine. "I think putting anything like that -in would be terribly crude. But the rest of the plan I like." - -"And I'll dress in my very best and make an impression for her sake," -Peggy went on, thinking aloud. - -"Wear that rose-colored dress and those cute pumps," suggested -Katherine, interestedly. - -"No, _not_ the rose-colored dress, and _not_ the pumps," Peggy returned -with a slight shiver. - -The first thing she did, when they reached their room, was to drag the -pumps from their hiding place and wrap them carefully in a sheet of -newspaper. - -"What in the world----?" began Katherine. - -"I'm--I'm going to take them to be resoled," murmured Peggy hastily. - - - - -CHAPTER V--MORNING GLORY - - -Freshman elections began with a babble. - -Everywhere the insistent voices of the lobbyists were heard. Upper-class -girls had come in to impress the freshmen as to the proper name to write -on the voting slips. - -"She's a _dandy_ girl," was shouted confidentially into Peggy's ears so -many times, while she didn't know _who_ was nor _why_ she was, that she -couldn't help having a high opinion of her class altogether. Every girl -in it seemed to be "dandy" in somebody's judgment. - -"Will you vote for Myra Whitewell?" some friend was imploring. - -"No," said Peggy, suddenly, "let me alone. Every one is after me so hard -to vote for other people that I haven't had any time to work for my own -candidate." - -And she forced her way through the throng, shouting into each bewildered -and crimson ear, "Vote for Gloria Hazeltine! She's a _dandy_ girl." - -"Peggy, _Peggy_, listen a moment," said Katherine's agonized voice. -"What do you think the Andrews girls are doing? Going back on us at the -last minute. They say they will put up Florence Thomas for president if -neither of us will run, and that you and I are traitors to try to elect -some one not from our own prep school." - -"Well," said Peggy, gritting her teeth, "we can elect Gloria without -Andrews." - -"Oh, but, Peggy, we will be voting against our own school! If they -insist on putting her up this way, won't we have to vote for Florence?" - -Peggy shook her head and went on through the thick crowds of freshmen. -"She's a _dandy_ girl," Katherine heard in Peggy's clear tones. - -Here in this giant recitation room was assembled a class in the process -of being welded together into an organization having one heart and one -mind. It was a conglomeration of more or less uncertain and dazed girls -now. Some were actively working up sentiment, but for the most part they -stood in groups, each group a stranger to the others, four hundred and -fifty girls, many of whom had never seen each other before this day, -trying to realize that they were of one college flesh and that out of -this roomful must be made the dearest friendships of a lifetime. - -There was nothing coherent about them as yet. They held aloof from each -other, partly in timidity and partly in pride, and their interests were -in conflict rather than in unison. - -Once pledged to a name for president, they clung to it desperately as if -that particular girl had been their best and oldest friend. And they -hated all the other girls who had been put up. - -Slips of paper were passed around and, with a feeling of deep -importance, each freshman wrote the name of the girl she wanted for her -president. - -With much rustling the slips were collected in hats by freshmen -appointed by the pretty Junior who presided. - -Then with more rustling they were counted, while the freshmen's eyes -popped out of their heads in eagerness to learn how good a showing their -favorite was making. - -The silence was most respectful when the pretty Junior took up the -counts the freshmen had made and read in her sweet, serious voice, "Myra -Whitewell 200, Gloria Hazeltine 101, Florence Thomas 99, Corinne Adams -50." - -The ignorant freshmen remained breathless, waiting to be told whether -any one was yet their president or not. - -"It is necessary, according to the by-laws, to have a two-thirds -majority for a candidate before she can receive office," the presiding -Junior informed them in those dainty and precise tones of hers. -"Therefore another vote will be cast, in the hope of bringing about more -unanimity." - -With joy the freshmen wrote again on slips of paper. But the vote came -in again identically the same! The pretty Junior, whose name was Alta -Perry, raised her eye-brows in surprise. Tirelessly the appointed -freshmen passed out new voting slips. - -"When a candidate has too few votes to be really in the running," -protested the Junior mildly, "the voting would get on faster to give -those votes elsewhere. The idea is not to show your loyalty to any one -girl, but to elect a president for the freshman class." - -Peggy took council with her henchman, Katherine. - -"If those Adams votes go to Florence Thomas, I suppose Gloria will be -sacrificed sooner or later," she said. "If they go to Myra Whitewell--I -think she's the haughty little thing yonder wearing the Mrs. Castle -head-ache band,--why, then Gloria's out, too. The only thing to do is to -get them for Gloria." - -She sped away to the Andrews group, where Florence Thomas, who had -always taken life pleasantly and coolly, was the flushed and eager -center of ninety-nine supporters, both those from her own school and the -others who had rallied to her cause. - -"Girls," said Peggy, "we're two ahead of you. Please be reasonable----" - -But she saw the curious star-like quality of Florence's eyes. And she -hadn't the heart to go on. - -The plain, kindly, everyday, comfy Florence to light up and shine like -that! Well, if she had known in time how honors could bring that girl -out, perhaps Peggy would have considered her a perfectly suitable -president from the beginning. - -"If _you_ had wanted it, Peggy, I wouldn't have stood a chance," -Florence breathed down to her from the window seat on which she was -perched so as to overlook her adherents. "The girls only put me up -because you and Katherine failed them." - -Failed them! Peggy's heart skipped a beat. The cold glances of the other -girls let her guess only too plainly how she was viewed by the Andrews -contingent, the members of her own school. - -"If you give up something that most anybody would want and feel just -right about it, then somebody comes and takes the joy out of life by -seeing you as a villain still," mused Peggy aloud. - -She didn't try to get the Corinne Adams votes for Gloria, she didn't -argue with a single Myra Whitewell enthusiast. - -And the vote came in again so nearly the same that the pretty Junior was -vexed, and looked at her wrist watch and thence out to the waning -sunlight over the campus. Really an afternoon spent with her own -somewhat intelligent juniors would be greatly preferable to this -monotonous and stubborn concourse of freshmen who seemed to have set -their hearts on making an election impossible. Corinne Adams had lost -seven votes to Myra, and now tragically arose and announced her -withdrawal from the contest. Many voices murmured protestingly "no, no," -as she came forward and went toward the door, but these sympathizers had -not voted for her when they had the chance. - -"I never knew anything so heart-breakingly mixed up," said Peggy. "That -Junior's mad, the freshmen are near to tears and the candidates are all -wobbly." - -And then suddenly an idea lifted her right up out of the depression and -doubt that was settling over the room. She stepped over to the desk and -held a confab with the Junior and the freshmen vote-collectors. - -Alta Perry snatched eagerly at the chance to bring order out of chaos. - -She arose and rapped for attention. Immediately all the despairing -whispers ceased. - -"Some one has suggested that the girls would like to see the -candidates," she said, "so that they'd know who they're voting for." - -A wave of approval swept her audience. - -"So I'll ask the girls who are still up to come forward to the platform -so that--everybody may see them." - -The crowd parted, while from three corners of the room the candidates -came. - -The Junior smiled apologetically as she ranged them before the class. -This was vastly amusing to her, but she realized that all the voters -were staring forward with hero-worship in their eyes waiting to see -which was the girl for whom each had been so religiously voting, ballot -after ballot. - -"Myra Whitewell," introduced Alta Perry, nodding toward the first girl. - -The girl acknowledged the introduction with an abrupt lifting of her -chin. She was small and dark, with snapping brown eyes and a fine, -slender, somewhat selfish face with no color in it. Her lips were full -and red. - -A pretty, wilful, egotistical picture this first candidate presented to -the freshman class. Myra was the sort of girl who would always have -blindly devoted followers willing to put up with her whims and -ill-tempers because they believed her to be of finer clay than the rest -of the world. - -She herself was superbly conscious of this extra fineness. She scanned -the eager faces of the crowd with quick glances, haughty, like a young -princess reviewing her humble but faithful subjects. - -"And this is Florence Thomas," continued the Junior, her eyes sparkling -just a bit with the fun of the little drama. - -And the class saw Florence Thomas for just what she was--a nice, -ordinary, typical girl like most of them; possessed of a good deal of -executive ability if it was forced into action, neither markedly -self-centered nor self-sacrificing. - -She had a little round face, with wavy dark-brown hair around it. They -got no very distinct impression of the second candidate further than -this. She was without the rare gift of personality that "gets across," -and hence her undoubted, sterling qualities had little opportunity for -appeal. - -Her face was flushed with her sudden prominence, and there was a trace -of embarrassment in her smile. - -Peggy's thought raced back over Florence's characteristics while at -Andrews. Florence was just the type to have an important place in a -small school, where each individual girl could get to know her and love -her. But here among these hundreds there was nothing about her striking -enough to hold their attention at first glance. - -A warm feeling of affection surged up in Peggy's heart for her last -year's comrade. - -Just for a moment she would have forced Florence down their throats -whether or not, if she could, without regard for the fact that she -believed another girl was infinitely better fitted for the post. - -That other girl's name was now being spoken by the Junior. - -"This is Gloria Hazeltine," she announced to the monster class. - -And just as the moon and stars fade out of view when the sun comes up, -so the less vivid attraction of Myra and Florence dimmed into -insignificance beside the appealing radiance that was Gloria's. - -"O-oh, isn't she sweet!" breathed a girl near Peggy. "I never saw -anything like that hair in my life. For goodness' sake, somebody lend me -a knife to sharpen my pencil so that I can vote all over again for her!" - -If she were nothing besides sweet, argued Peggy to herself, she would -never have been put up. Most of the girls were that. But she understood -that the rapturous tribute of her neighbor meant far more than the words -she had chosen. - -The quality of graceful and unconscious leadership seemed stamped in -Gloria's face, as she smiled out on the freshmen, who were all beginning -to go wild over her at once. - -The slips were passed again while the three candidates faced their -different constituents. - -All anxiety had passed from Peggy's mind. She was _sure_ who had won. - -The slips rustled triumphantly when they had been sorted after the -voting and were passed up to the Junior again. - -"Twenty for Florence Thomas," she read aloud without raising her eyes -from the papers. "Fifty for Myra Whitewell, and--all the rest for Gloria -Hazeltine--Miss Hazeltine is elected president of your class!" - -With that announcement something happened to the class. Instantaneously -the fusion took place. - -There were no longer separate groups, shy and a little suspicious of -each other: they were one class. They had elected a president. She was -the president of all alike. - -At the same instant they all burst forth into the same song: - - "Oh, here's to Morning Glory, - Drink her down! - Oh, here's to Morning Glory, - Drink her down! - Oh, here's to Morning Glory, - Whom we'll love till we are hoary; - Drink her down, drink her down, - Drink her down, DOWN, down! - Balm of Gilead, Gilead, - Balm--_Of--Gilead_-- - Way down on the Bingo Farm!" - -And then they turned and looked at each other with wonder, for the -little rhyme in the middle had come with unanimous harmony to all, and -each had sung this cheer song just as loudly as she could, although a -few minutes before many would have said they didn't even know the tune. - -Peggy was thrilled to her finger tips. She squeezed Katherine's arm. -Gloria's beauty and ability had been enhanced twenty fold, for every -girl present, by this spontaneous tribute. And Peggy could think of -nothing more desirable in the world than that she should some time hear -this song laden with her own name. - -The other officers were elected with expedition, the vice-presidency -being offered to Myra Whitewell, who indignantly refused it, declaring -she would be first or nothing--thus maintaining a single discordant note -in the general happiness and good humor. The despised office was then -hesitatingly tendered to Florence Thomas, who was almost too pleased to -speak, but made the remark in acceptance that this office, while still -too big for her, was nearer her size and she'd do just everything she -could to deserve their trust and faith in her. - -Myra Whitewell edged her way out of the room, with a slight sneer -distorting her pretty lips. - -But Florence shook hands with all who came forward and received their -kisses with pleasure that made every one love her. - -The class went singing home in every direction from its election. An -enormous hysterically happy crowd flocked in the wake of Gloria. Peggy -and Katherine were in the outskirts of this crowd, and they looked from -the heroine of their making into each other's radiant faces. - -"Well, thank goodness, her looks elected her," sighed Peggy thankfully. -"As soon as I thought of a 'seeing is believing' test, I knew we'd won." - -"All the girls are saying she's the prettiest president a freshman class -ever had," laughed Katherine, "and the joke on them is that they have a -regular person as well as just a beauty." - -"We've certainly done our duty by the class," agreed Peggy. - -Katherine turned and looked consideringly at her room-mate. - -"You _know_, Peggy, that you could have been the center of that crowd -this minute, if you had wanted to. Dit Armandale did a good deal to work -up sentiment and--you are the best known freshman of any--or were an -hour or so ago. I think you'd have been just as good a president as -Gloria,--and if I do say it myself, a lot better even--and--and just as -pretty----" - -"No matter who you room with," trilled Peggy remindingly and -ungrammatically, "you're for Hampton now." - -"That Wilson idea again?" - -"The very same." - -"_Well_, anyway, Peggy, you _could_----" - -"Don't!" said Peggy suddenly and almost sharply. "Do you think I am some -kind of _angel_?" - -"Ye-es," drawled Katherine affectionately with a slow smile, "sort of." - -But Peggy looked away from her laughing eyes, and shook her head quickly -as if she expected to shake out of it some unwelcome thought. - -Later in the day--just before dinner time, she and Katherine gathered in -the quantities of notes and invitations that had come to Gloria and -Florence Thomas. It seemed that every girl in college, no matter what -class she was in, had taken immediate occasion to sit down and write her -congratulations to the freshman president. - -When they stopped to deliver their burden at Gloria's door, they found -her room fragrant with American beauty roses, and sweet with violets and -spicy with pink carnations. A huge orchid nodded coolly in a Japanese -vase which the girls had never seen before, and an array of dainty -little leather-covered books on every subject from "Friendship" to -"Ibsen" were strewn on the table by the window. - -Three new pictures in black walnut frames stood leaning against the -couch with the waiting picture wire beside them. - -Gloria came to meet them, flushed with pleasure. - -"Oh, I never knew it would be like this," she exclaimed, quite frank in -her delight. "And what have you brought me? Oh, so many notes--aren't -they all _dear_? I didn't imagine college--or anything--could be so -nice." - -She sat down on the couch while Katherine and Peggy poured their harvest -of congratulations into her lap. Her fingers felt them over and sifted -them before she unfolded any, and she looked up to laugh her happiness -into her friends' eyes. - -"Your room looks wonderful," breathed Katherine, looking around, "just -like a senior's, all of a sudden." - -"Doesn't it?" echoed Gloria. "I've solved the mystery of Ditto -Armandale's room seeming so unlike her, as you said it did,--her -furnishings are all gifts from people for getting elected to things." - -Two dimples of satisfaction dented Peggy's piquant little face. She -ached from head to foot from the hours of standing and of forcing her -way back and forth through the crowds while she made her brief campaign -appeals. But it had turned out wonderfully. Her candidate had won, and -was this same radiant and beautiful Gloria looking so joyously at her -now. - -"Listen to this," Gloria was saying, reading one of the tributes from -the note-room; "this is a darling one: - - "'_Dear First Lady of the Freshmen_: - - "'Please allow an old, old Junior to express her joy over you - and her envy of you. Once a long time ago--two whole years--she - herself heard the Balm of Gilead song in honor of her own - election to the heights you have attained to-day. - - "'I don't think I ever felt so lofty over anything. And all the - college experiences that have come since have never dimmed the - thrilling feeling of that day or made it seem one bit less the - best thing that ever happened to me. - - "'But I was afraid as well as glad: afraid that maybe I wouldn't - know how to do everything just as I should and that I might in - some way disappoint the girls who were mentally carrying me - about on their shoulders. In case you ever feel that way, little - First Lady--and this is the reason for my note being written--I - want you to know that you'll be very welcome to come to the - veteran--and get the advice or bolstering up she may be able to - give you as a result of having learned from her own mistakes. - - "'Remember the juniors are just in college to be big sisters to - the freshmen, and I hope you will come and claim the - relationship the first free minute you have. - - - "'Love and congratulations, - "'_Mary Marvington_.'" - - - -"Oh," said Peggy, clasping her knees, "isn't that a lovely one?" - -"Well, it's hard to realize that you are one of the great ones, now, -Morning Glory," sighed Katherine whimsically, "so that even -ex-presidents will be flattered when you go to see them. And the -condescension is all yours! Because a brand new freshman president is -more in the college public eye than an 'old' junior who used to be once -what you are now." - -"Great ones," Gloria was repeating to herself. - -"Do you suppose I really am?" she asked artlessly. - -"Yes, you are," Katherine said. "A few hours ago you weren't half as -much as Peggy--and didn't have the outlook she had, but now----" - -Peggy and Gloria simultaneously clapped their hands over Katherine's -mouth, and in her quick movement Gloria's mass of folded notes scattered -over the floor like a sudden storm of Luther Burbank snow-flakes. - -When they had gathered these together again and had helped Gloria sort -out the most interesting-looking ones to read first, they each kissed -her and went home, leaving her well absorbed in her overwhelming -correspondence before they were even out of sight. - -There was a reception in honor of the officers that evening in the -Students' building. The freshmen were tired from their strenuous day, -but they looked charming, nevertheless, in their soft silks and batistes -as they drifted down the walk to the scene of festivities. - -"There's Peggy Parsons!" a cry went up as soon as the pair from Suite -22, Ambler House, entered the building. - -Peggy was immediately surrounded and borne off toward the receiving -line, down which she was marched with nearly all the Andrews crowd and -ever so many others in her wake. It did her heart good to hear every -Andrews girl telling Gloria Hazeltine that each had voted for her from -the beginning--and they believed it, the happy enthusiasts, Peggy could -see that. - -Then Peggy was swept on by the mob and was soon in the middle of a -seethe of dancers, all girls, fox-trotting, one-stepping, waltzing and -bumping into each other in brilliant lavender, pink, blue and white -confusion. How many dances she danced, nor what they were, she never -could remember afterwards. For as soon as one girl left her another -carried her off; juniors, seniors, sophomores and freshmen, she couldn't -tell which. But every one knew her name and hailed her as Peggy as if -they had known her all their lives. - -"I never knew anything so funny," she said, when she was limping home -later, with Katherine in the moonlight. "It was just all a kaleidoscope. -I feel a good deal like a moving-picture that has been run too fast." - -"I think you were the director of the picture," smiled Katherine, -glancing affectionately at her dishevelled room-mate. "You wrote the -scenario for the election, and directed it, even if you did have to be -in the picture yourself." - -"Katherine, you've got an awfully horrid room-mate," mused Peggy in -answer to this eulogy. - -"I've got Peggy Parsons," Katherine refuted. - -"Well, she's the one I mean," Peggy laughed. - -"You'd be ashamed of her if you knew. Katherine, what do you think I -almost wished when we were taking all those notes over to Gloria?" - -"It wouldn't be so strange if you'd realized they might all have been -for you," Katherine defended her. "They might, you know. It was just -your crazy generosity that gave them up and deprived me of rooming with -a freshman president. Did you really wish you were president? I hope you -_did_, because if you didn't you're more than human and I don't like -such people." - -"There!" cried Peggy, abruptly stopping in her homeward limp, and -throwing her arms around her room-mate's neck, "I'm not half so ashamed -of it now that it's been dragged out into the light of day--the light of -moon, I mean. It's funny how much better it makes a person feel to -confess something mean and be sympathized with for it." - -"Anyway," said Katherine, as their tired feet climbed the steps of their -house, "you were the _dea ex machina_, Peggy Parsons." - -"The--the what?" demanded Peggy, startled. "Oh, it's mean to spring -anything like that on a trusting room-mate who hasn't any Latin -dictionary along. I'll be driven to using a trot for your remarks, if -you keep on." - -Their laughs rang out inside the huge dimly lighted hall, and the -matron, in curl-papers and a purple wrapper, strode forth from her room -noiselessly and confronted the culprits. - -"Hush, hush," she said. "At this time of night! Please go up to your -room without any more of this unseemly laughter." - -"Yessum, yessum," whispered Katherine and Peggy meekly, and together -they stole up the broad stairway to their rooms, where they snapped on -the light and looked at each other and laughed again--but this time -silently. - - - - -CHAPTER VI--AS OTHERS SEE US - - -Bang! Bang! - -"My-y goo-oodness, is it time to get up?" Katherine sat up sleepily the -morning after the freshmen officers' reception, and tried to get some -response from the little log-like Peggy in the bed across the room. But -Peggy's face was toward the wall and she presented a perfect picture of -deep sleep. - -The banging continued and Katherine felt it incumbent upon her to locate -it. Gertie Van Gorder, who had kindly taken upon herself the task of -waking up the entire second floor at whatever hours its individual -inhabitants specified, never thumped like that. She always came quietly -in and laid icy cold wet wash cloths over their faces, and informed them -calmly, "Your tub is ready, girls; I've left my violet ammonia in there -for you." - -So it wasn't Gertie. - -"Peggy," yawned Katherine fretfully, "can't you wake up and help me -think what that is?" - -But Peggy, accustomed to so much more efficient means of awakening, -never stirred. - -"Come in," invited Katherine unwillingly and experimentally to the -banging, and Hazel Pilcher entered, with Myra Whitewell in her wake. - -"Lazy!" cried Hazel. "You've missed breakfast!" - -Katherine moaned and hunched her shoulders in her pink-ribboned -nightgown. "What's become of Gertie?" she demanded. "We can't wake up by -ourselves, can we?" - -"Gertie's in Boston; didn't you know? Went for the week-end," and Hazel -sat down on the foot of the sleeping Peggy's couch and laughed until she -was hoarse. "Now that just shows that what Myra and I are getting up is -a real necessity," she giggled. "If there wasn't a crack o' doom of some -kind, I suppose the whole second floor of Ambler House would snooze -right through the three days until Gertie gets back. It's--it's -ludicrous," she finished, after fishing around for a good word. - -"You're sitting on Peggy," pointed out Katherine lackadaisically when -the laughter of her guests had died down. - -"Wake up, Peggy," cried Hazel, shaking the rounded shoulder. "Wake up -and quit being sat on." - -"You spoke of a plan," drawled Katherine, when all had seen that the -only effect on Peggy was a tossing of her golden curls on the pillow. -"Was it something to take Gertie's place? If it were, I don't think -anything could; Gertie will get up at any hour to call us, and says she -likes it, too. I'm too loyal to Gertie----" - -"Nonsense," snapped Myra Whitewell, who had not forgotten that one of -the room-mates had been largely instrumental in electing her opponent at -elections the day before. "This is a fault party that we're going to -have to-night, in Hazel's room. Just freshmen, except Hazel. You two -must be sure to come." - -"A fault party?" - -"Yes, every house ought to have one. Hazel says this house did last -year. Each person tells the others their faults, you know, and then we -can improve. Everybody is very frank and it really is good for you to -know." - -Myra glanced somewhat bitterly at the inattentive form of Peggy, and -Katherine hastily turned a little surprised laugh into a sneeze. - -"Oh, so she wants to tell Peggy her faults," mused Katherine. "Peggy of -all people! Why, she hasn't any." - -"I don't want to come," a muffled voice came from the erstwhile sleeper. -"It hurts people's feelings." - -"It shouldn't," interposed Myra sharply. "If it does, _that's_ a fault, -and somebody can bring up that. Everybody ought to be glad to know -what's the matter with them. Why, the idea!" she burst out, "there isn't -one of us who hasn't seen something to correct in the others, and -instead of just keeping it to ourselves and being hypocrites, isn't it a -thousand times better to tell the person right out?" - -"I don't think the person would like that," the muffled voice protested. - -"Well, all the freshmen must come," Myra persisted. "Come at nine-thirty -to-night, in case we don't have another chance to tell you." - -"That's a funny thing," said Peggy, rubbing her eyes when the two had -gone. "Do you know any faults of any of the girls, Katherine? I don't. -Let's see, there are eight freshmen in this house altogether,--and Hazel -taking part makes nine. Why, Katherine, I think we have wonderful people -here." - -"That part won't matter so much," hinted the wise Katherine. "They want -to do the telling, I think." - -"I'll watch the girls all day whenever I'm not at class, and if I see -anything the matter with any of them, I'll have something to report on." - -"I know some for Myra myself." - -"Some way I hadn't thought of that," answered Peggy. "I believe I do, -too. But here's a good idea, Katherine,--you and I live together, and -did all last year, and we ought to know _slews_ of faults about each -other. So when we are called on we can just show each other up at a -great rate--drag each other out to be ridiculed"--Peggy rocked in bed -with the merriment of the thought. "We can make up the most wild faults -of all, and please everybody," she laughed. - -"You wouldn't be gloating over foolish things like that if you knew we'd -missed breakfast," interrupted Katherine. "And, my goodness, woman, -there's the chapel bell!" - -The room was a confusion of flying clothes, waving hair-brushes and -dodging figures, for some ten minutes thereafter. Then the pink and -white cretonne bed covers were smoothed quickly over two couches that -had each been made up in a single swooping motion, including sheet, -blankets, comforter and all. The fat pillows were stuffed into their -cretonne covers and thrown at the head of the beds, and then two -well-dressed, well-groomed appearing girls, with their notebooks under -their arms, emerged and tore down the broad stairway, flying across the -campus lawn, just in time to be shut out of chapel, while the first -welling notes of the organ came out to them, as they stood panting at -the door. - -"You know that girl down the hall who keeps saying 'all things work -together for good,'" said Katherine. "Well----" - -"What do you mean?" asked Peggy, but she had already cast one fleeting -glance towards the Copper Kettle just outside the campus. - -"It's just a question of whether we can get breakfast in twenty minutes -and be in time for our first class," went on Katherine. "And I'm -starved, and I--don't mind having missed chapel, after all. That's what -I mean." - -Laughing, Peggy caught her arm and the two took a short cut out of -campus and across the road to the little tea room. - -"Nothing is served till nine o'clock," they were informed, for provision -was made against just such a feeling as Katherine had expressed. The two -ran around the corner to the nearest drug store, and regaled themselves -with two egg chocolates each. - -"Goodness," murmured Peggy on their way back to recitation, "I certainly -wish Gertie were back, bless her heart. If anybody at the meeting -to-night finds any fault with _her_, while she's away, they'll have me -to deal with." - -But when the freshmen were assembled that evening, no word was said -against Gertie, nor was her name so much as mentioned, for there is -little satisfaction in scoring an absent friend, when you have just -received license to make a present one squirm. - -Two candles were lit in Hazel's rose-and-old-blue room. There was no -other light. On the couch and here and there about on the floor sat the -Ambler freshmen, in silk kimonos of Japanese or French design. Florence -Thomas was wearing a pale blue with big gold dragons, Peggy noticed as -soon as she came in, for the candle light flickered over it, and the -dull gold threads gleamed. - -Myra's kimono was of midnight blue crepe de chine without any relieving -color tone whatever. Her face shone above it more pale and proud than -usual. - -"The reason we are here," began Myra, rising and standing gracefully -before them, with her dark eyes taking in every one of the group, "is to -see if we can't be of some help to each other in weeding out the most -glaring faults of the Ambler House freshmen. Hazel is here as a sort of -referee, and each girl is to tell--quite without reservation--any -criticisms she may have for the rest of us. Now begin, somebody." - -She sat down again with a little silken rustle, and Florence Thomas -leaned forward, her pleasant face serious with the weight of her -self-imposed task. - -"There's one thing I've noticed," she said slowly. "Doris Winterbean and -May Jenson don't seem to mingle with the rest of the house as they -might. Now I don't want you two girls to get mad," turning to her -victims, "but you have an awfully ungracious air when any one comes to -your door, and you always lay a book face down as if you could hardly -wait to take it up again. You aren't exactly snobs,--maybe it's only -that you're too studious. You never have any eats in your room, and yet -you are always going to call on other people when you hear they have. -And that's about the only way any of us can entice you into our -rooms----" - -Doris and May wilted perceptibly under this attack, and their mouths -opened in astonishment to see the way they had been impressing these -girls whom they had supposed were their generous friends. But instead of -making them more gentle when it came their turn to uncover faults, they -threw discretion to the winds, and heaped up accusations, forgetting -that another morning was coming and they must go on living among these -girls throughout the year. - -The atmosphere of friendship which prevailed when the girls arrived in -Hazel's room, was changed now to one of animosity. - -One after another, the girls criticized each other's gowns, table -manners and personality. Each new victim of attack blanched, drew a -sharp breath of horror and surprise to see in what esteem she had been -held, and then bided her time to "get back." - -Faith in friendship died in that college room. Listening to the deeply -serious voice of her critic, each girl had some fleeting memory of that -same critic--bursting laughingly into her room for an exchange of -confidences, or protesting admiration and liking in a sunny, hearty -fashion. - -A girl named Lilian Moore came in for the worst of the drubbing. Hardly -a girl present but had discovered some glaring defect in her. - -"You'll pardon me, but your clothes have absolutely no style, and Ambler -House can't help wishing you were a little more modern. It hurts a house -to have to claim a girl that will not dress properly--it destroys the -tone of the whole house." - -"Your hair--this is awful--but it really ought to be washed more. It -ought to be fluffy and done with some care, and not--just wadded up as -you do it." - -"We like you--Doris and I were saying the other day what a nice girl you -were--but we both said we'd like you so much better if you didn't say -'indeed' all the time." - -"You have absolutely no faculty for making friends." - -"Your room is so unattractive--there's nothing in it, really, and you -can't expect girls to want to go to see you." - -"You don't walk right--you stoop." - -Those were some of the things that these dainty freshmen had been -thinking about her since the first day she had appeared among them, -shining-eyed and shy, anxious for their approval, fearful lest she, with -such limited advantages, should fail to measure up to their wonderful -standard! And then, oh, glory of life, and happiness undeserved, they -had seemed to care after all! They had seemed to want to talk to her, -had passed her their candy, had often come to her to be helped with -difficult algebra problems! - -No one even asked her if she had any fault to find in return. What could -she have found to criticize about _them_? So she was passed over at -last, and allowed to sink back in silence, miserably conscious of her -cotton crepe kimono that she and her mother had made with such pride and -such appreciation of its becomingness. Her cheeks burned a tortured red, -but there was nobody to notice her. - -The hilarity with which Peggy and Katherine had meant to accuse each -other of colossal faults had died. They sat quietly in the candle dusk, -holding each other's hands while indignation showed in their faces. - -"And Peggy Parsons----" - -It was the cold, diamond-hard voice of Myra Whitewell speaking. "Peggy -Parsons, I've felt it my duty for quite a while to tell you how -thoroughly conceited you are----" - -Katherine, who had shifted uneasily when the speech began, gasped now -and would have laughed in her relief, for it seemed to her that if there -was one thing in the world everybody must know that Peggy was _not_, it -was conceited. Myra was wide of the mark, Katherine felt, and she did -not even press her room-mate's hand that still lay passively in hers. - -"You feel as if you have to dip into everything," went on Myra, with a -voice in which spite was veiled in a grave tone of carrying out a -disagreeable duty. "You felt you must run the elections----" - -"Ah," thought Katherine, "I knew that was the reason." - -"As if the freshman class couldn't get along without you! You made -yourself very forward and, it seemed to some of us, bold, by going up -and advising Alta Perry how to do things. And Alta the junior president! -It wasn't respectful, and it was taking a good deal on yourself!" - -Here Florence Thomas, astonished that any one should dare arraign Peggy, -got up, the golden dragons flaming in the dim light, and moved -deliberately toward the door. - -She found the door locked, and the key gone. She turned angrily. - -"Until we're through, nobody ought to go," explained the high-handed -Myra Whitewell. "As I was saying, Peggy, your egotism----" - -"Back it up, back it up," protested Doris Winterbean. - -"Well," Myra accepted the challenge, "that poem of yours in the -_Monthly_----" - -"How did you know?" cried Peggy and Katherine, simultaneously. - -"Why, I read the foolish thing in the _Monthly_," snapped Myra, -surprised. - -Peggy, her eyes alight, and Katherine, dawning credulity in her face, -turned and met each other's gaze in slow triumph. - -"It's _in_?" asked Peggy breathlessly. - -"Of course--how else----?" murmured Myra. - -"Girls!" cried Peggy, radiantly, "my poem is in the _Monthly_! I didn't -suppose they'd really use it--oh, I would have told you all, if I'd been -sure. Are the new _Monthlies_ down on the table now, Myra?" - -"Yes, they're downstairs." - -"I'm going to sneak down just as I am and get mine," breathed Peggy, -"and then shall I read it to you, girls?" - -Faults, depression, lost faith--all forgotten in the frank joy that was -Peggy's. - -She pattered across the floor, begged prettily for the key, took it from -Hazel Pilcher's reluctant hand, and fitted it in the lock. - -A moment later they heard her trailing down the hall. - -There was complete silence while she was gone. - -The outraged feelings were subsiding, and the girls, who a few moments -before were almost hating each other, now waited in pleasant -anticipation the reading of the poem. - -There was no warning of her return. They were simply watching the door, -which she had left open, and all of a sudden she stood framed in it, the -soft candle glow lighting her lovely face and blue-clad figure, and the -tan cover of the _Monthly_ which she held clasped to her heart. - -"I--can't come back in," she whispered. "I met our house-mother on the -stairs, and she made me promise to go right to my own room if she'd let -me creep down and get the _Monthly_ from the table. It's after ten, and -all the lights are out down the hall. Good-night, girls; I've had a -lovely time," and she really believed she had. - -Katherine followed her, with a backward wave of the hand, and what more -fault finding went on after their departure they never knew. - -"I s'pose it isn't much to any one else," said Peggy deprecatingly, "but -I just feel as if this was the nicest number of the _Monthly_ ever -gotten out!" - -And Katherine answered loyally, "I do too." - -The cretonne couch covers they had smoothed up in such haste that -morning were carefully folded back, and Katherine climbed into her bed, -and with a little tired sigh was fast asleep; but Peggy, after carefully -fixing the screen around her room-mate's couch so that the light -shouldn't trouble her, propped herself up with pillows in her own bed, -the College _Monthly_ on her knees. - -She found her name in the index, "Margaret Parsons," and was thrilled by -the formality of that. Then she fluttered the leaves over--just as any -one might, she told herself, until she came, to her intense surprise, of -course, to her poem. - -This she proceeded to read. And when she had finished, she tried to read -one of the stories or a poem by some one else, but somehow nothing -seemed interesting after that--nothing had for her quite the vividness -or charm, so she shamefacedly yielded to the temptation to read hers all -over again. - -But before she had finished, a curious sound disturbed her. - -From somewhere down the hall came the unmistakable sobs of a person -crying out her heart in heedless abandon. It was not very loud, but was -penetrating and alarming. - -Peggy listened, hardly able to believe her ears. When she and Katherine -were so happy in college, was it possible any girl would have cause to -cry like that?--right here in Ambler House?--the nicest dorm on Campus? - -Sighing, she slid her feet into her slippers, dipped her arms into her -kimono again, laid the precious _Monthly_ on the dressing-table, turned -out the light and was soon in the fearsome hall, with those sounds -echoing down it, and no light but the tiny globule of red at the other -end, which indicated the fire-escape. - -She went on toward the unwinking light, until she was sure she stood -before the door through which the crying emanated. - -It was Lilian Moore's room. She had a small single room and was -apparently drowning herself in tears there. - -The recklessness of the crying, the absolute indifference as to who -heard or knew, made Peggy hesitate for just a minute before she turned -the knob of the door and went in. She was not exactly afraid, and yet -she felt very much alone with something too painful for her to cope -with, as she felt her way into the darkness. - -She felt her foot sink into a soft pile of clothing, then immediately -after, she stumbled against some large and solid object that she never -remembered having seen in the middle of Lilian's room, and for which she -failed utterly to account. - -Lilian was throwing herself about on the bed now, and Peggy did not know -whether she realized there was any one in the room or not. She felt for -the light, and, after much fumbling, found it, and snapped it on. - -The freshman's room was in a state of complete confusion. An open trunk -half packed was what she had run against in the darkness. Piles of -clothing and books were strewn round about it on the floor, ready to go -in. Lilian, herself, fully dressed, started up from the bed with a cry, -as the glare of light flooded everything, and dropped back moaning when -she saw that it was Peggy who had come. - -"Now," said Peggy quietly, sitting down on the bed beside the tossing -figure, "let's be real still or the matron will hear us." - -This obvious common sense thrown like cold water over her misery had an -immediate effect on the other girl, who had expected sympathy. - -The sobs shuddered down to long-drawn painful breaths, and Lilian -covered her swollen eyes with two weak hands. - -"I'm sure it isn't just the way you think," said Peggy, after a few -minutes. "It couldn't be as bad as all that." - -"What couldn't?" - -"Why, whatever is the matter." - -There was a pause and then came a smothered, "Yes, it could. It is. Oh, -and I wanted to come to college so--I wanted to come!" - -"Well--and you came, and here you are with all of us," Peggy reminded. - -"That's just it," the confidences came now pouring over each other for -utterance. Lilian clasped Peggy's cool fingers with a fevered hand. "I -wish to goodness that I hadn't ever come. I don't belong. The girls -showed me that to-night. Oh, when I think of how my mother kissed me -good-bye--and--and gave me up for all this year--just for--this----" - -"For what?" helped out Peggy. - -"To have the girls make fun of my room, my clothes--and me. Listen, Miss -Parsons. We lived in a small town where nobody was very well-to-do. And -mother--wanted something better for me than she had ever known. When she -was a girl she used to dream of going to college----" - -Sobs choked the narrator and she struggled for a moment before she could -go on. - -"And--when I began to grow up, she decided that I should go--oh, Miss -Parsons, when I came away she said to remember that I was going for both -of us!" - -Peggy's fingers tightened around the feverish hand, and she could see -very clearly in her mind the face of this girl's mother with its wistful -yet self-sacrificing expression, and the tears came suddenly to her -eyes. - -"She saved, my mother did, for years so that there would be enough--for -me--to come on Campus like the other girls," a trace of bitterness crept -in here. "But I didn't know how they dressed at a place like this and -how they all fixed up their rooms. I didn't realize there would be -anything besides the tuition and board--and--I--didn't--know--they -couldn't--love me----" - -Peggy tore her hand from the other's grasp and went and stood by the -desk with her back to the bed. Her eyes fell on a blotted and -tear-stained letter which began, "Dear Mother." - -"Listen, Lilian," she said, going back to the couch, "I haven't any -mother at all. That will seem strange to you, who have seen me laughing -around here, happy and singing most of the time. But I haven't,--and I -know that nothing ever will quite make up. That letter you have -begun--just try to realize that no matter what happens to me,--whatever -hard thing I may have to go through, I can't write such a letter as -that." - -Lilian stared at Peggy in surprise. Why, she had supposed the little -Miss Parsons had _everything_. - -"You are the one to be envied after all," said Peggy. "No matter how -many of the girls like you, or how much they care, it isn't anything to -the way a person's own mother cares. And if you want them to, the girls -will care, too. We'll begin now to _make_ them." - -"It's too late--I'm going home." - -"Going home after your mother saved to send you?--going home without the -least little bit of a try to bring things your way?--going home and -taking away your mother's chance to enjoy college through you?--oh, no, -you're not going home!" - -"Well," hesitancy showed in Lilian's manner, "I've been packing my -trunk. I made up my mind that the girls would never have to see my -homely clothes any more." - -"Stay a week and--try, will you?" pleaded Peggy. "Katherine and I would -miss you awfully if you went home now." - -"You and Katherine? Would you really?" - -"Yes, really and truly. Why, when we first knew you here, we said you -were the kind of girl we wanted for a friend, and that we were sure we -were going to like you," fibbed kind little Peggy, striving to find in -her memory a record that they had noticed her at all. - -"Then it isn't everybody in the house that feels as some of those girls -do?" - -"Nobody really," stoutly maintained Peggy. "Even the ones who talked too -much didn't feel that way. They had all just been rubbed the wrong way -by some one else--and you were an unresisting object to fire away at in -their turn. And don't you suppose some of the rest had just as horrid -things said to them as you did? And they aren't crying about it either. -They are protected by being more egotistical and sure of themselves and -they're just thinking 'how ignorant that critic of mine was,' that's -all." - -"If you want me to," said Lilian suddenly, "I'll stay--for you." - -"Stay for the mother," corrected Peggy, "and for your own satisfaction, -too." - -"Very well, I will," came the determined voice at last. - -"Then good-night," said Peggy, "and don't you think about it again -to-night--will you?" - -"No," said Lilian sturdily, "I'll think only about to-morrow when maybe, -if I come to see you, you'll read me your poem in the _Monthly_." - -"Why, you _dear_," said Peggy, and, since she was a very human little -girl, she made her way back to her room in a state of pleasant warmth -and contentment. - - - - -CHAPTER VII--CINDERELLA - - -As a college morning dries all tears and wipes out all resentments of -the night before, the freshmen were only slightly haughty in their -demeanor toward each other next day, and none of the upper classmen had -reason to suspect that they had been going through a period of stress -and disillusionment all by themselves. - -Lilian came down to breakfast, ate hurriedly and scurried off to class, -after casting one quick glance of adoration toward Peggy. - -Peggy and Katherine became conspirators as soon as she was well out of -the house. - -"You have time this first hour to-day, and I have the third," said -Peggy. "So you go down and buy some green and white cretonne and some -silk for pillow tops, and I'll sew them up when I come in." - -In the afternoon they hung a "Busy" sign on their door for the first -time, set the percolator perking coffee to inspire them and plunged into -the green and white material in earnest. - -"These cretonne curtains will be nearly as pretty as ours, don't you -think so?" asked Peggy, "and ours were made at the store. I'm getting -very proud of us as seamstresses, Kathie." - -The plain silk was made into pillow tops of red, blue and yellow. - -"The red one will brighten things so," approved Katherine, when she came -to stitch it over a plump pillow, one of three that the room-mates -hadn't needed this year for themselves. - -Like culprits, they sneaked down the hall, their gay offerings wadded as -closely as possible in their arms, and knocked in fear and trembling at -Lilian's door. If she had called "Come in," they would have run. But -they received no answer, so Peggy cautiously opened the door, and thrust -her curly head inside. - -"It's all right," she whispered in relief to Katherine a moment later, -when she saw that Lilian had not returned from class. - -The friends worked quickly, and soon the green and white curtains were -hung at the windows, and the three bright pillows were ranged along the -couch. - -"But she hasn't any couch cover at all," wailed Peggy, standing off to -look at the result "And the white bedspread does look so hopeless -showing through those gay cushions. What shall we do, room-mate?" - -Katherine's forehead was wrinkled. "You know that old green denim -curtain that hangs before the clothes closet in our bedroom, Peggy? -Don't you suppose that would be better than nothing? It was there when -we came, but it isn't so very ancient looking, and it would be -inconspicuous anyway--and just about the kind of thing you see in lots -of rooms." - -With ruthless hands they tore down the big green curtain in their own -suite, snipped off the rough end with scissors, and bore it back in -triumph to Cinderella's apartment. - -"I'm going to run over to Gloria's," said Peggy then, "and ask her to -part with one or two of those pictures she got for being elected. She -has two Home-keeping Hearts that I know of, and several pictures that -look like photographs that can't mean much to her, and would just cheer -up our protegee wonderfully, and make her room pass muster with any -guest." - -Peggy's tireless feet carried her blithely across the campus to Gloria's -room, and it didn't take her twenty minutes to pick out what she wanted, -with Gloria's help. - -"Of course I'm glad to have your little friend have them," said the -obliging freshman president. "And if you want me to, I'll come over and -see her some time and bring a lot of girls from my house--junior -celebrities and senior dramatists and people like that, and it might -have a good effect on those Amblerites that tried to snub her." - -"It looks like a different place," Peggy and Katherine congratulated -themselves later when they had done what they could in the way of -changes. "It's changed from a poor little apology of just a place to -sleep, into an inviting and cozy college room--with the brightest -cushions a person could imagine," they summed up boastfully. - -Lilian came dragging home from classes, tired circles under her eyes -after the strain of the evening before, and a return of hopelessness -toward her situation. She had Peggy and Katherine for her friends, but -after all these two joyous freshmen went very much their own way, and -were too busy with engagements with more important people, to think of -her much--the girl with the horrid clothes and the wadded-up hair--and -the unattractive room. So she reasoned disconsolately. - -She opened her own door listlessly and entered the room. - -And then she thought that she had made a mistake. It couldn't be her -room--of course it wasn't--and yet, when she turned in bewilderment to -leave it she beheld her own books on the rickety little table. - -Well, it was magic! However it had happened, she accepted it with a -queer choking sense that she was really to live in a room like other -rooms hereafter. College had suddenly come close. - -She parted the green and white cretonne curtains and looked out on a new -world; she stroked the bright silk cushions with a new sense of comfort -and luxury. - -Then she went over to the dresser and drew out the tear-stained letter -that began "Dear mother," and tore it into bits. A few minutes later her -pen was flying over some clean, fresh sheets in a glowing description of -college, of her room, of her friends. - -It was the sort of letter to make a mother think with a sigh of gladness -when she read it, "Well, she is having it all. How nice, that my -daughter can draw about her such friends. How lovely, that she is so -pleasantly situated in such a delightful room--and how, best of all, -that she should not have been deprived of college." - -An interested group of girls clustered around the house bulletin board -on the stair landing, and read many times the latest sign that was -pinned there: - -"Looks like a nice party to me," speculated Doris Winterbean. "But May -and I haven't a chafing-dish. May, go and borrow one from some -sophomore, because I'm curious, and after last night I certainly want -something cheerful." - -Peggy herself knocked at Lilian's door a few minutes later. - -"I've got a sign up for a party to-night," she said as soon as a -welcoming voice had called to her to enter, "and I thought maybe you'd -like Kay and me to fix your hair for it--it's pretty hair--and I -thought----" - -Lilian tried to say something about the benefits she had already -received at their hands, but Peggy hurried on. - -"We have a new electric hair dryer, and Kay has some marcel irons--an -amateur kind, you know--and if you'd like to have us practise them on -you,--I think the result would surprise the girls and send them right -down to Gibot to have theirs done." - -"I can't let you," stammered Lilian. "I never _could_ fix my hair well, -but I wouldn't let you bother with it for the world." - -"Just time before dinner," Peggy insisted, whipping a towel from the -dresser and beginning to fasten it around the reluctant shoulders of the -other freshman. - -She was led down the hall and Peggy experimented with all the Suite 22 -hair-dressing implements. Egg shampoo, alcohol, bay rum, electric dryer, -special French orris powder, and finally the hot curling iron. - -Then Katherine dexterously did it up for her--not in an original style -at all, but in the mode that had swept the entire college: so that when -their work was finished and the victim was handed an oval ivory mirror, -she exclaimed with wonder, for there was reflected a nice-looking-girl -just like a hundred others in Hampton, with wonderful ripples of soft -gleaming hair, that made you want to follow the waves with your fingers. - -"Is that me?" asked Lilian. - -"We'll forgive you for being ungrammatical, since it's all in -recognition of our efforts," said Peggy delightedly. "It is very much -you--the way you ought to have been all along, and will, I hope, -continue to be, now that we've shown you the way. Mercy, Kay, she does -look wonderful! If you and I ever get poor, we'll know of one talent we -have at least whereby we can hope to make an honest living." - -So Lilian came that night to the party, very much elated, and entirely -self-confident, instead of shrinking and conscious of making an inferior -appearance. - -Those who had chafing-dishes had brought them, those who had not had -borrowed them. Beside each chafing-dish, the hostesses had arranged a -little set of materials. - -"Now, two chafing-dishes are prepared to make fudge, one sea-foam, and -one chocolate marshmallow. Will the freshmen kindly pair off and choose -what they want to make? Here are the materials for white taffy over -here, as a prize for the ones that get done first." Peggy made the -announcement, and the girls lit the chafing-dishes and started in with -great zeal. - -This was the kind of party to please them all. Nothing but candy--and -all they could make and eat of that! - -"This is an anti-climax party," explained Katherine, when the fudge was -bubbling with its rich delicious odor, in the chafing-dish chosen by -Florence Thomas and herself. "Peg and I thought of the awful faults we -all found in each other last night"--_they_ hadn't done any of the -finding, but the others didn't notice that they painted themselves -blacker than they were--"and we have a suggestion to make as to how to -cure them." - -The girls were a little displeased--more of that criticism business? -they wondered. Even the tempting odor of the cooking candy couldn't -quite appease them. - -"It's just a way to wipe out the faults as soon as possible," said Peggy -with her funny and irresistible little smile. "I thought if we each -cured the faults of the others in our own minds, why--where would they -be?" - -There was an alarming simplicity to this. - -Doris dropped her fudge spoon. - -"What do you mean, Peggy?" she demanded. - -"Well," laughed Peggy gleefully, delighted with the discovery she and -Katherine had made, "that party last night did no good, some way. -Everybody went home feeling disgruntled and out of sorts--and -overwhelmed more or less with their own imperfections. If each -fault-finder just--doesn't find fault, you know,--even in her own mind, -there won't be any fault pretty soon to be found." - -"Don't see it," said Myra Whitewell. - -"If _you_," Peggy turned to her patiently, "if _you_ just wiped out the -notion you had about me--and stopped letting it torment you--that I -wanted to run things, you know,--why, why--then you wouldn't see me like -that, would you? Pretty soon every one in Ambler House would be praising -every one else, and loving every one so much that the other houses would -begin to notice, and would catch the infection. I think it's better to -let our enemies find fault with us, if they must, but not our friends." - -"Ambler House would get a wonderful reputation for having the best -freshmen on Campus if we all boosted our house and our classmates -everywhere, I can see that," ventured Florence Thomas eagerly. - -"Well, shall we try?" urged Peggy, "shall we just try it out as an -experiment?" - -Because it was Peggy, and because the idea was new, and because the -candy was just ready to eat now, and very tempting, the good-natured -freshmen light-heartedly promised to try her plan--and to follow it -faithfully until it had had time to show either some result--or no -result at all. - -This was the beginning of an attitude of mind that later became habitual -with that group of freshmen. It wasn't many weeks after this -anti-fault-finding party in Peggy's room that, if a first-year girl -heard that another lived in Ambler House, she was filled with wistful -envy; for the good times the Amblerites had, their gay and loyal -friendship became matters of common college discussion. - -Myra Whitewell would not have worked into the system if she could have -helped it. But the others, very much in earnest under the stimulus of -Peggy's sunny example, refused to give heed to her grouches, or to be -hurt at her snubs,--and they never failed to speak well of her outside, -so that this praise of theirs came to her ears at last, and filled her -heart with warmth in spite of herself, and she could not do less than -give them her friendship--yes, and even her warped and selfish love,--in -the end. - -There was candy enough left after the spread that night for each -freshman to take a plateful to her particular junior or senior friend. - -As they were leaving, their faces glowing with appreciation of the -pleasant evening they had just spent, and in anticipation of the -junior's or senior's delight at their offering, Doris Winterbean drew -Peggy aside and whispered in her ear: - -"Well, I don't know, Pegkins, it's rather wonderful, but I've tried your -plan ever since you spoke of it and it's had an uncanny effect. Why, do -you know, I already see the greatest difference in that Lilian girl? -Honestly! Peggy, her hair looks _pretty_ to me now, and I thought it was -horrid last night. And her face and manner--she just seemed as happy and -confident as anybody, instead of so shy and uncomfortable. It's--magic, -Peggy, and you may not believe me, but I really do see her altogether -differently." - -And Peggy burst out into a little laugh of enjoyment, and her eyes -followed Lilian with pride. But she did not think it was necessary to -disabuse the mind of Lilian's new admirer by telling her that the -"magic" had a very material foundation. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII--INDIAN SUMMER - - -Glory lay over the whole college world. - -The sun blazed upon an earth more beautiful than Peggy and Katherine -ever remembered to have seen it. The woods, when the two took their -walks, were as red with burnished leaves as if they had been on fire. - -And a golden haze came in the morning and at sunset. - -The mystery, the still power, and the vague melancholy of autumn, crept -through the veins of the Hampton girls, and they walked and picnicked on -Leeds rocks, and sang away the glorious afternoons far into the -twilight, when the sudden coolness warned them of what they would -forget--that these days were going, and that winter would soon be upon -them. - -Peggy and Katherine saw their first autumn at college dissolving in that -golden haze almost before they had begun to enjoy it and to realize that -all this was really theirs--this life among seventeen hundred girls, all -young, all having identical interests, all happy and congenial. - -There came a Saturday afternoon too lovely to be spent at home. - -"What shall we do to-day, Katherine?" Peggy asked. "Let's just go -somewhere by ourselves. Do you want to drive, or walk, or have a bacon -bat or take some books down by Paradise and read?" - -A day like that one suggests many ways for enjoyment, but if there is -one thing more absolutely satisfying than another, and -just-the-thing-to-do on such a Saturday afternoon, it is to tramp over -to the cider mill, with a jug and a capacity-appetite for new cider and -ginger cookies. - -So it was inevitable that Peggy and Katherine should decide on this as -the ideal adventure, after they had exhausted all the possibilities. - -"That cider mill seems just as much a part of the college as Seelye -Hall," laughed Katherine. "Peggy, can't you taste that wonderful cider -now? Let's go right away,--I think we can walk over and back, don't -you?" - -That would mean about a nine-mile jaunt. - -Somebody in the house had a gallon jug, and the room-mates promptly and -unceremoniously "borrowed" this and, with silk sweater coats, and a -ribbon tied around their heads to keep their hair from blowing, started -off into the wonder of Indian summer, their hearts full of joy over -every one of the nine miles that lay before them. - -The road was dusty, the jug was heavy, the day was hot. After two miles -they were warm and thirsty--and hungry, too, and their feet dragged a -little. - -"Oh, that cider, that cider," laughed Katherine. "I wish it could come -part way to meet us!" - -"Never mind, room-mate," cheered Peggy, with mock heroism; "only a mile -and a half to go now, and then the lovely cider will be running into our -jug, and we can get several glassesful to drink there. And ginger -cookies to your heart's content, Kay." - -"Can't we--speed up a little?" urged Katherine on the strength of that; -"if we just double our steps, we'll get there sooner." - -So the dust clouded up more thickly under their hastening footsteps, and -the mile and a half dwindled and disappeared, until there before them -was the cider mill itself, keeping guard over a little stream that -gurgled into the mill and out again. - -"At last, room-mate!" hailed Katherine. - -"Katherine," hesitated Peggy, right in sight of their goal, "have -you--have you thought how much heavier the jug will be to carry back -when it is full?" - -Katherine cast at her one withering glance, seized her arm, and the two -ran now, the jug bumping as it would against their knees, and the -perspiration bright on their foreheads. - -"It looks like a deserted castle," panted Peggy when they turned up the -worn pathway to the entrance of the mill. "And isn't it quiet? Doesn't -it usually make some kind of noise?" - -"You're thinking of the planing mill, infant," mocked Katherine. - -"Well,--I--anyway, Katherine, the door is shut." - -"It won't be hard to open,--why can't you--?" - -"Yes, I can open it," Peggy answered, stepping into the entrance hall -where the glasses of cider and the little packs of ginger cookies were -usually sold, "but there's no one here now that we're in, and it looks -more deserted than ever and there isn't even a _crumb_ of a ginger -cooky--and I'm starved, nor a _sip_ of cider--and I'm _thirsty_!" - -"Why, this is Saturday, too. What do you suppose is wrong, Peggy? I'm -absolutely dead, if I must confess it. I can't possibly walk home -without a cool drink of cider to brace me up. I never was so hungry and -tired in my life." - -"That's his house, I think," Peggy nodded across the road toward a -comfortable-looking farm house. - -"Do you suppose the cider man would be home?" - -"Anyway," Peggy said faintly, "his wife would, and she might have some -ginger cookies." - -They hurried down the walk and shuffled across the dusty road, feeling -that if they were disappointed now they could scarcely bear it. - -They went to the side door of the farm house and knocked timidly. - -"Oh, Peggy, they're _eating_!" gasped Katherine. "I feel like a tramp. I -almost wish I was one, too, and then maybe they'd invite us in. But -isn't it a late time to be having dinner?" - -The cider man's wife stood in the doorway now, smiling at them somewhat -impatiently. - -"Did you come for cider?" she asked. "Well, about ten others have been -here before you to-day, on the same errand, but he didn't make any -to-day. And there aren't any ginger cookies. We didn't have anything for -the other girls, either. I never saw anybody like you college girls--a -person feels guilty if he rests one day,--what with you all being hungry -and thirsty just the same. I'm real sorry." - -"We--we brought a jug," said Peggy pathetically. - -"Brought a jug? Ernie!" (raising her voice, and calling back into the -room where the table was). "They brought a jug." - -Ernie called back something, and a smile flitted across his wife's face. - -"He says if you want to wait till he's through dinner, he'll go over and -make some," she interpreted. "We're very late getting dinner -to-day--we've had so many interruptions. But if you want to wait------?" - -"We'll wait!" cried Peggy and Katherine in the same breath. - -"It will be about an hour," said the woman, closing the door. - -"An hour!" Peggy and Katherine exchanged glances with deep sighs, and -trudged down the steps, and slowly back toward the mill. - -The cider mill was an important institution to Hampton girls--and to -Amherst boys, if they cared to walk so far. The man who owned it seemed -to feel an especial responsibility toward college girls--as every one -does near a college town--and so he kept a counter in the entrance hall -over which he sold as much cider as a girl wanted to drink, for five -cents. One of his stalwart young helpers would fill her glass as many -times as she wished, for the single first payment. - -Then there were the ginger cookies, done up in oiled paper, in packages -of a dozen, that his wife had made, and these the hungry young invaders -could purchase at ten cents a package. They seemed so much a part of it -all that cider never tastes quite perfect to Hampton graduates, to this -day, without ginger cookies. Any of the Hampton girls would have been -surprised to visit any other cider mill and find that their order for -ginger cookies was not understood. - -Opposite the mill, on the same side as the farmer's house, but farther -back, and screened all around by a circlet of trees, so that it sparkled -in the midst of them like a Corot painting, was the cool mill-pond, with -reeds and rushes growing out into it, and shady branches overhanging it. - -Drawn toward this now in their search for something of interest to while -away the time, Peggy and Katherine parted the bushes and young birch -trees, and found themselves looking into the very heart of beautiful -things, with all the world of dust and disappointment and fatigue behind -them. - -"That water looks cool," murmured Peggy gladly. - -"Yes; I don't know as it's safe drinking water, but I think we might -_wade_ in it." - -"If we have time." - -"An hour?--why of course there's time. What else can we do to amuse -ourselves?" - -They were as entirely hidden from the road and the farm house as if they -had been in another world. Without more argument, the two sat down and -Katherine slipped out of her grey pumps, and flung her grey silk -stockings after them. Peggy was wearing tan oxfords and tan stockings. - -"O-oh, who would dream there could be anything so cold on such a warm -day?" gasped Peggy, trying it with her toes. - -"I like this reedy, weedy part," laughed Katherine, her feet dipping in -up to her ankles. - -They sat, thus, side by side, dangling their feet like happy children, -seeking to fathom with their eyes how soon the water got deep enough to -drown them, should they step out farther, and watching idly the patterns -made by the sea-weed strands near the shore. - -"What if a fish should come?" cried Katherine suddenly, and laughed at -the expedition with which Peggy's feet came glistening up out of the -water. "Don't be silly, Peggy," she giggled, "fish can't bite anything -but flies and worms." - -"Maybe the kind that would live in a mill-pond could," said Peggy, -comfortably sliding the reassured feet back into the still water. "And -anyway, who wants to dispute habitation with a fish?" - -With all manner of the gayest and most idiotic prattle they whiled away -that endless hour, and if any one had stood just outside the fringe of -little trees and had heard their voices without seeing them, he would -never in the world have guessed that such inconsequential conversation -was being indulged in by two freshmen in good standing of the largest -woman's college in America; girls who would be candidates for the degree -within four years and who were even now in the process of being moulded -into "intelligent gentlewomen." - -"Hasn't that bird a funny whistle?" asked Katherine suddenly. "Listen! -He whistles just like a person!" - -And as soon as the words were out of her mouth, she was covered with -confusion, for the realization came to her that it was a -person,--somebody going by on the road, probably, and they had so far -forgotten the world outside their own green hedge that it had startled -them. - -"I'm going to peek out," said Peggy. Thrusting the leaves aside, she -made a tiny opening,--large enough for her eyes to get a clear view of -the road. - -And then all of a sudden she sprang up, her face hot with excitement, -and made as if to burst through the thicket to the road itself. She -would have accomplished this had not Katherine caught her dress and -dragged her back so violently that she sat down, breathless, on the bank -of the pond, exclaiming over and over in gladness, "It's Jim! Katherine, -it's Jim!" - -"Your shoes and stockings, child," urged Katherine. "Put them on, -quick." - -But Peggy seized one grey and one tan stocking and on they went over her -wet feet. Then she stepped into her tan oxfords and flew out from -shelter. - -Katherine looked helplessly after the retreating Peggy, and then down at -the assorted pair of stockings left for her. "There seems to be nothing -to do but put them on," she sighed resignedly. In a few minutes she -emerged from the shadows with as much dignity as she could assume. - -And there down the road was Peggy, the full blaze of the autumn sun on -her golden head, her eager face uplifted and aglow, and towering above -her two good-looking young men, apparently oblivious to everything -except this strange and vivacious little apparition that had burst so -suddenly upon them. - -One, Katherine recognized at once as Jim Huntington Smith, the grandson -of old Mr. Huntington, whom they had known last year at Andrews, and -through whose generosity Peggy had been enabled to come to college. - -The two girls had been the means of discovering Jim's relationship to -the owner of "Gloomy House," as the old Huntington place was known, and -of re-uniting these two members of the same family. - -So they regarded Jim as very much their property; as they might look -upon some handsome older cousin. - -Peggy was waving an arm back towards the pond, and the boys were -laughing. Then as she went on with her gesticulations they looked up and -saw Katherine. - -Katherine had been shrinking back against the trees that lined the -water, very conscious of the one tan stocking and the other grey one. -She was trying to make up her mind whether to go forward and divert -Peggy some way so that she would let these boys go, and would come back -and change stockings, or whether she should go back and hide, and run -the risk of having the whole joyous trio down the road charge upon her -unexpectedly. - -It was all settled for her now. - -Jim swung his cap in the air and started toward her, while Peggy and the -other young man followed more slowly. And even at such a time Katherine -couldn't help noticing the funny little way Peggy's eye-lashes kept -sweeping down and up again, and how pretty and pink her face was. - -"Oh," smiled Katherine to herself, "if she should suddenly wake up and -notice her own feet." - -"Well, Katherine Foster, how are you?" Jim was saying, wringing her hand -heartily. "This is certainly fine. Bud and I walked over from Amherst to -get some cider, but found there was none to be had. But meeting you -people compensates for it all." - -"Oh, but there's going to be some cider, too," Katherine informed him; -"that's what we're waiting for. The man is just finishing his dinner and -he promised to come over and make some for us. I hope he'll let us watch -him--I never saw any cider made." - -"We'll stick around." - -"Do--and maybe------" - -"Well?" - -"Maybe you'll help us carry our jug home. It's just inside the trees -there." - -"I should say we will. It turns out to be mutually lucky that we met; we -have the advantage of cider being made and you get your jug carried -home. How's Hampton anyway? Like it as well as you thought you would? -Peggy has sent me a post-card now and then, but they all say the -regulation thing: 'Having a glorious time, the cross is our room,' -'Perfectly lovely up here, nice weather for ducks,'--you know the kind." - -Katherine laughed. She remembered the day she and Peggy had picked out a -complete set of post-cards with Hampton views, and how they had been in -the habit of dispatching them with the most bromidic messages they could -think of, to their friend at Amherst. - -"We just did it for fun," she told him now. "We wanted to embarrass you -before the other fellows by having a perfect flood of the usual type of -post-cards coming in from a girls' college. We thought you'd know. Why, -we even signed them all sorts of different things--'Essie,' and 'Jennie' -and 'Millicent' and----" - -"And Marmalade," added Jim with a twinkle in his eye. "I have them all, -making a border around my room. The other boys are green with envy. -They----" - -At this moment Peggy and her companion reached them, and Peggy -interrupted Jim in perfect unconcern. - -"Katherine, I want you to meet Mr. Bevington, of Amherst college; Mr. -Bevington, this is Miss Foster, my room-mate." - -"Awfully pleased to meet you," murmured the Bevington youth over -Katherine's hand. - -"You may not be when you know what your friend, Jim, has volunteered for -you," laughed Katherine. - -"It couldn't make any difference." - -"He's promised that you and he will carry our cider jug home for us when -we get it filled." - -"Has he?" cried Peggy delightedly. "Oh, that's going to be lovely. It -was awfully heavy, Mr. Bevington, when we were dragging it over here. At -first it seemed as light as a feather, but before we had traveled a mile -it became as heavy and awkward as a cannon ball." - -"So you see," Katherine turned and laughed up at Bud Bevington, "there's -an awful task ahead of you." - -But of course both young men were delighted to carry any burden for two -such charming young ladies, and as they started back toward the mill the -talk veered to other subjects and ranged from sports to house dances, -when the owner of the mill came up to them. - -"Are you the college girls that wanted the cider?" he asked jovially. - -"Two of us are," Peggy answered primly. "But all of us would like to -come and watch you make it if we may." - -"You can help," answered the man. - -So with that delightful prospect ahead of them, they entered the -rambling building, dim except where the sunlight found a crack between -the dusty boards and streamed weakly in. - -They followed the man up a winding stairway, that was like climbing to -some quaint old attic. There was one place where they could look down -and see the black, gold-specked water rushing away under the stairs. It -gave Peggy a creepy feeling. The specks of gold were dots of light that -fell into its darkness. - -"It--makes an awful roaring noise--kind of subterranean sound," murmured -Katherine, but nobody heard her, because of the rush of the stream. - -When they reached the loft above, they stood to one side waiting for the -man to begin. - -"The young ladies are going to make the cider," he said. - -"Oh," cried Peggy, "that's fine, but how do we begin?" - -The man hauled over several large sacks of apples, lifted a round cover -in the floor, bringing to view a kind of chute. - -"Pour them apples down there," he invited. - -With the assistance of the boys, they lifted the sacks and the apples -went tumbling down through the opening. But Peggy and Katherine were -aghast to see what kind of apples they were. - -"Why, some of those I poured down were just--_awfully_ bad," declared -Peggy. "In fact, quite decomposed," she added facetiously. - -"Don't they get sorted out down below?" Katherine inquired anxiously -when the last of the sacks had been emptied. - -But the cider man only laughed. - -When they went down, the apples fell into a kind of wagon without -wheels, which moved slowly by machinery, till it reached a certain -place, where heavy weights came down from above and slowly crushed the -fruit. Very soon a small stream of clear amber juice ran down a trough -and into a large hogshead. - -The cider man filled their jug, and then gave them each a glass, and -told them to drink all they wanted from the hogshead, without additional -charge, since he had made the cider just for them. - -Sweet, clear and refreshing as any cider in the world, this came to -their thirsty lips. And yet--the girls thought they had never enjoyed -cider less. The memory of that collection of apples that had gone -hurtling down the chute! - -The boys, however, were enthusiastic, because Peggy and Katherine had -made it, and they praised it highly enough so that the kindly owner of -the mill did not notice the heroic efforts of his two feminine guests to -seem appreciative. - -Out into the sunlight again the little party came, Jim carrying the jug -nonchalantly on his shoulder. - -"Rebecca at the well," he laughed; "here she is in moving pictures." - -And the others laughed, too, and began the long walk toward Hampton, as -refreshed as if they were just starting out for the day. - -The farmer stood in the doorway of his mill, and watched the departure -with a friendly smile. - -There is nothing so wonderfully satisfying as college Saturday -afternoon, with all lessons forgotten--and only a restful Sunday in the -immediate future. And such a perfect fall day as this! - -The friends strolled leisurely along, enjoying the brilliant coloring of -the trees, and the beautiful golden sunlight of a late October -afternoon. - -They had nearly reached Hampton village and Katherine was beginning to -think that Peggy would reach Ambler House without discovering her -mistake about the stockings when, with a thrill of horror, she heard her -say, "Look at my feet, how _dusty_ they are--you couldn't tell _what_ -color shoes I had on." - -"But, oh, dear, if they aren't blind they can tell what color -_stockings_," moaned Katherine to herself. - -Politely Jim and their new friend glanced down at the dusty oxfords. - -Jim gave a start and was about to speak, when Katherine saw him suddenly -look at her feet, too. His eyes twinkled. - -"Is that a--new fad?" he asked finally. "A fellow would never dare adopt -anything so radical." - -"Is what a new fad?" demanded the unconscious Peggy, and then she looked -down and saw. - -Her face burned with a quick red, but she laughed infectiously. "We--we -went wading, and I suppose I did this when I saw you, Jim, so it's all -his fault. Kay dear, can you forgive?" - -Jim and Bud laughed with her, and of course the devoted Katherine -forgave on the spot. - -Young men are not allowed to linger in the grounds at Hampton, so the -adieus were quickly said and Peggy and Katherine hurried across the -campus to Ambler House. - -No sooner had they reached their room than word went down the hall that -there was cider in room 22, and one by one the girls on the second floor -found excuses to drop into Peggy's and Katherine's room. They were most -generously supplied with cider, as they hoped they would be, and Peggy -and Katherine had no wish to keep any of it for themselves, after they -had seen the sort of apples that went into it. - -"Funny thing," said Peggy sadly as they were dressing for the evening -later, "I don't believe I'll ever like cider so very much again." - -"No," agreed Katherine, "the safest way to do, if you want to keep your -enthusiasm for anything, is not to know how it's made." - -"You're right. I'll shut my eyes more after this," laughed Peggy, "but -anyway, dear room-mate, we had an awfully nice time, didn't we?" - -"Oh, so, so," answered Katherine noncommittally. - - - - -CHAPTER IX--THE HOUSE DANCE - - -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. - - - - -CHAPTER X--TINSEL AND SPANGLES - - -"My mother is coming." - -Lilian Moore made the announcement to Peggy in a tone of mingled joy and -reluctance. - -The Christmas holidays were over and the fearsome midyear examinations -were things of the past. The dullest of the three terms had settled into -full swing--day after day of white earth and grey sky. - -The Ambler House girls had been having a Wednesday evening frolic down -in the parlor, with the piano banging and gay voices shouting out their -musical defiance of dullness in general. - -"She writes that she's coming for just a day to see a little bit of -college for herself," went on Lilian. "Peggy--she'll--be disappointed -in--my grandeur. You see, I raved so about everything when I was home at -Christmas time. I guess it may hurt her feelings to see that I'm -not--one of the foremost people in my class." - -Lilian essayed a laugh that broke into a sob. - -Myra Whitewell, who stood near, impatiently turned away. "I never knew -anybody to be so incessantly humble in my life. You really do make me -tired, Lilian. Haven't we all liked you for a long time----? You young -Stupid, don't you know that we all have to take _some_ steps toward -popularity ourselves? Don't you know that we are _all_ outsiders when we -come here, and it depends at least _partly_ on ourselves whether we ever -become insiders? You are always bringing up the same thing." - -Peggy laughed at these two who had never learned to become entirely -reconciled to each other even after all the close association of living -together in the same house. Myra was so impatient and so proud; so well -equipped with a good opinion of herself, while Lilian was almost -maddeningly willing to be trodden under foot on every occasion. - -"Mother says maybe she can absorb a little of college for herself," -Lilian mused, not heeding Myra's cutting comment, for she had grown used -to them. - -"When is she coming?" asked Katherine, who glanced around the room of -singing girls, and tried to imagine what impression it might make on one -who was not a girl any longer, and was seeing it for the first time. - -"To-morrow," answered Lilian, with that same note of doubt in her voice. - -"Well," said Katherine, her eyes still on the shouting young women who -rocked to the music they sang, while the piano did its best to be heard -above them, "I think we can show her a good time." - -"Will you help me, girls?" cried Lilian, brightening in sudden -gratitude. - -"Why, of course," said Katherine, "any guest of any of us is a guest of -the house--that is, if the one who is entertaining wants it to be so." - -"I haven't much for to-morrow," said Peggy quickly. "I know you have -several recitations, Lilian,--we'll see that she is taken care of every -minute from the time she arrives until she leaves us, weeping." - -Peggy's enthusiasm was beginning to carry her away. - -"Let's go and plan out the hours," she said to the rest of the -group--"just like those schedules they publish in the papers of the way -certain great people--and criminals--spend their days: thus, 9 a. m., -has breakfast on tray; 10 a. m., sees dressmakers and milliners; 11 a. -m., rides in automobile, under guard----" - -Lilian was laughing, all her doubts vanished. - -Even Myra entered into the plans with spirit. - -And never had a celebrity been met by a more enthusiastic crowd than was -gathered at the Hampton station to meet the frail and fluttering little -woman who stepped down from the 9:10. - -Her eyes, shy and yet full of anticipation, were searching for Lilian, -who fairly flew down the platform, the happy bevy of girls keeping close -behind. - -After Lilian had kissed her mother, each girl, as her name was spoken, -wrung her hand with such goodwill and welcome that poor little Mrs. -Moore realized that she would probably have rheumatism in her fingers -for days, as a result. But her worn cheeks flushed with pleasure. - -Whose would not, at such a reception when she had expected to be merely -a spectator during her single day's stay? - -She was borne first to Lilian's room. - -Entering Ambler House, her eyes glowed, and she turned her head to look -after a merry group that came running down the steps, their books under -their arms. Through the great hall, the floor shining and smooth, with -handsome rugs to give color here and there--and up the broad stairs the -little procession wended its way. - -And Lilian could hardly restrain a cry of surprise as she and her -mother, followed by the faithful escort, stepped inside her room. - -On the dresser was an adorable bunch of violets with inviting purple -pins beside it. - -"Some one has sent you flowers?" cried little Mrs. Moore, noticing -these, even before she took note of the dainty green and white curtains, -and the green denim couch cover, that Peggy and Katherine had been -inspired to supply. - -"No, they didn't," cried Peggy from the doorway. "They didn't send _her_ -the flowers,--look on the card!" - -And when Mrs. Moore picked up the card that lay beside the pins, she -read aloud, "For Mrs. Moore; welcome to Hampton, from one of Lilian's -friends, Myra Whitewell." - -If you could have seen the look of pleasure with which the little woman -lifted those fragrant flowers, and with shaking fingers fastened them to -her girdle! Oh, precious first impression of college! How it crept into -her heart with the fragrance of those violets--quite the nicest thing -that had ever come to her in her care-worn, workaday life! - -Lilian's own face was suffused. - -That Myra, of all people, should have been so dear and thoughtful! And, -a moment since Lilian had been harboring a rather bitter and unkind -thought against the black-haired freshman. - -For Myra was the only one of the Ambler House "crowd" who had not been -at the station to meet her mother. Lilian felt hurt. But now, she -remembered Myra's chemistry laboratory, that was in full session at this -moment--and to her, also, a new feeling came with the odor of those -violets. - -She thought, with quick gratitude, that nothing she could ever do for -Myra would be too much now to repay her for that glad and surprised -light in her mother's eyes. - -"And now, Mrs. Moore, you're going to be handed from one to another of -us, hour by hour," laughingly explained Peggy. "Your daughter has some -classes that she really feels she _must_ attend. Ordinary classes we -could all cut with pleasure, but Lilian's this morning happen to include -math, and Lilian is--well, she doesn't know a triangle from a piece of -fudge, Mrs. Moore----" - -She broke off, giggling, and fled down the corridor to escape Lilian, -who pursued with pretended rage, at her daring thus to lay bare her -mathematical shortcomings to her trusting mother. - -"So," Katherine took up the story of the adventures that were to form -Mrs. Moore's great day, "you are to walk with me, please,--if you will, -down Elm street and down West street a bit, and Green street, and then -you will have seen all the part of town that belongs to college life -that is outside Campus--invitation houses, undesirables and all. Then at -eleven I shall turn you over to Peggy and Hazel Pilcher, at the campus -gate, and they will show you through the new library and chapel and the -Art building annex. That's as far into the future as you are allowed to -peep." - -"It sounds very alluring," murmured Mrs. Moore, whose eyes were still -bulging, from the sight of her staid and quiet Lilian pursuing and -pounding the fair-haired Peggy. - -The company of the girls was more to her than the sightseeing itself, -and she found herself swept along by the gay hilarity of whoever -happened to be her escort. She forgot that her hair was as grey as -theirs was black or golden; she forgot that she had believed her time -for gaiety was over. - -In the big library she paused, hushed, before the sight of many graceful -figures bending in silent absorption over the volumes that lay in their -laps or before them on the massive tables. She could not guess, in her -awe of such an intellectual atmosphere, that fully a third of these -diligent readers were bowed over Arnold Bennett and Gilbert Parker, -instead of the volumes of deep learning she fancied. - -"I wonder if the matron will let me ask Mother to the House to lunch," -puzzled Lilian, a little later, when she met them, after the tour of the -campus was complete. "I haven't had time to ask her and there may not be -a place." - -"There will be lots of places, but your mother and we won't be there to -fill them," said Peggy quickly. "Gloria has invited us down to Boyd's -for a real party." - -"Beef steak and French fried potatoes--and peas?" cried Hazel. "A real -one?" - -"That's just it," said Peggy, slightly disappointed that her friend had -been so quick to guess. "How did you know? I was the only one with -Gloria when she telephoned the order." - -"How did I know!" scoffed Hazel, "as if anybody that knew what was best -would dream of ordering anything else at Boyd's." - -Boyd's was the popular restaurant, where the girls trooped in to -luncheon whenever the allowance from home seemed to justify such a -luxury, where they sat on Saturday evenings, their white shoulders -gleaming above the white silk, green chiffon and blue crepe de Chine of -their very best dresses. - -"Are we really--invited by--Gloria?" questioned Lilian, halting before -the luminous name of the freshman president. "Isn't that wonderful of -her to give a party for Mother!" - -Gloria, adorable in white furs, met them at the doorway of Boyd's, and -greeted Mrs. Moore with her own delightful impulsiveness. - -"I'm so glad to know you, Mrs. Moore," she said with that pretty -earnestness for which Gloria was famed throughout the freshman class. -"It was awfully good of the girls to let me have you for a luncheon -party. You know, mothers are scarce around these parts, and if we can't -have our own, we lie awake nights planning the best way to ensnare -somebody else's, whenever one comes visiting. So please excuse us if we -act as if you belonged to us all instead of just to Lilian." - -And Mrs. Moore looked straight into the clear-blue eyes of the tall -red-haired idol of the freshmen, and said she was only too glad to be -adopted by any and all of her daughter's friends. - -Something went grey and blank in Gloria's wonderful eyes before her -searching gaze, and the lashes swept down. The tall, graceful figure -drew itself more erect, as if she were on guard in some way. And Mrs. -Moore dropped the warm hand she had been holding, with a sigh. - -The beautiful hostess led the way upstairs into the dining room and was -shown to a long table that had been reserved for her. - -With much throwing aside of velvet coats and furs, the friends seated -themselves around the guest of honor and leaned forward, their elbows -quite frankly on the table. - -Every girl was laughing and talking, with the single exception of Gloria -herself. As the little luncheon progressed, with the whole table in a -happy uproar, Gloria's abstraction became more and more noticeable. - -Celebrities are entitled to their moods. So no one spoke of Gloria's for -some time. - -Then Peggy leaned over and whispered, "Come back to us, won't you?" - -And Gloria's face was swept with sudden color. - -She turned startled eyes on Peggy's laughing face. Then she shook her -shoulders as if she might free herself from some unpleasant thought. - -"I--wouldn't be anywhere else--for a farm," she said. - -"Oh, well," murmured Peggy to herself, "it wasn't anything but my -imagination. What could Gloria possibly have to bother her? Maybe she -didn't have her history or her Greek to-day. She's just the one to mind -it a lot, if she didn't always excel in the classroom." - -After the wonderful ice-cream and the dear little French pastries had -been consumed, with much delight by the girls and with wistful enjoyment -on the part of Mrs. Moore, the check was laid by Gloria's plate, with -the deferential air the waitresses always used to a very good customer. - -Gloria, without glancing at the total, motioned for a pencil, and -scribbled her name and the name of her house across it. - -Then she slid into the soft coat Katherine held for her, and while Peggy -and Hazel and Myra were still busy patting Mrs. Moore into her things, -she moved idly toward the stairs, her eyes glancing over the crowded -dining-room as listlessly as if she were not a celebrity at all. Hushed -groups watched her pass and admiration and affection shone in fifty -pairs of eyes. - -"Honestly, girls," she caught a distinct murmur, "I just can't talk -while she's going by. Did you ever see anything so wonderful?" - -"She's the best-looking girl in college," came the rapt answer from -another girl at the same table. - -But this incense drifted past Gloria without making any particular -impression. - -The first few days of her presidency she had enjoyed with a frank -egotism that had pleased Peggy and had caused Katherine many amused -smiles. - -But she was accustomed to it all now. There is no class in college so -breathlessly eager to bestow devotion as the first class, and when the -admired person is one of their very own, an added quality of loyalty and -unswerving devotion creeps in. - -"I just don't believe that girl ever did a mean or silly thing in her -life," the voice followed Gloria as she started downstairs, with the -rest of her party in her wake. - -"I don't believe she'd have any use for a _minute_ for a girl who didn't -live right up to her ideals. You know, she's one of the advantages of -college,--she and girls like her--we can see what we _might_ be anyway, -even if few of us really come within a mile of it." - -Was there a trace of bitterness about that vivid and gracious mouth of -Gloria's? Did she really hurry a little to be out of earshot of those -praises that, however ridiculous, would once have been sweet? - -At the foot of the stairs she waited for Mrs. Moore. She bade her -good-bye prettily, saying she must remain downtown for some shopping, -and that she hoped they'd all see Mrs. Moore in Hampton again--a great -many times. - -"My dear, I want to thank you for a _beautiful_ luncheon," Mrs. Moore -smiled up into the lovely face with that quaint way she had. "I do -indeed wish I might stay right now, and live in town somewhere so that I -could get to know the girls better. And I think a sort of -Everybody's-Mother would be a good thing for many of the students." - -But if she had hoped to bring a hint of the desire for confidence from -Gloria she was disappointed. - -Gloria's eyes took on that odd grey blankness again, and though she -nodded politely and pressed Mrs. Moore's hand warmly, there was not a -trace of that electric circuit between them which it was so easy to -establish with Peggy and Katherine or most of the other girls. - -"She's very cold--and proud," mused Mrs. Moore, glancing in a puzzled -way at the retreating back of Gloria. - -Lilian was the sort of girl any one could understand. When she felt -badly she would cry, when she didn't she'd laugh. If she liked any one, -she showed it, and if she disliked any one she nearly made faces at -them, her distaste was so apparent. - -Gloria Hazeltine was a new specimen to Lilian's mother. She discovered -with her woman's intuition that something was troubling the young girl. -She wanted so much to help her. But she could do nothing before such icy -reserve. - -"What--happens to me now?" she turned to Peggy and said, as they went to -the outer door of the restaurant. "I suppose we go back to the college?" - -"No," said Peggy, peering anxiously down the street outside. "No, your -sightseeing goes on from here. But I don't see--what ought to be here." - -"Have you ordered a machine, Peggy?" asked Lilian in awe and happy -expectation. - -Peggy's laugh rang out. "Well, not exactly ordered it," she explained, -"but hinted for it. It's Jim's, and he promised to bring it over from -Amherst and meet us here at 2 o'clock. He's five minutes late. -That's--oh, there he is. Come on, Mrs. Moore, come on, Lilian and -Katherine and Myra Whitewell and Doris Winterbean. Hazel, I'm sorry you -have classes." - -Unselfishly she handed Mrs. Moore into the front seat beside Jim, sure -that it would add to the interest of everything for her, to have this -good-looking young man explain things and deferentially point out new -attractions. - -"Only an hour and a half, Jim. I want to get Mrs. Moore back to go to -Thirteen with me, and Lilian has biology at that time. You don't think -that's so good a show class as Thirteen, do you, Lilian?" - -"Mercy, no," hastily answered Lilian. "Not so good a show class as any -other. You don't want to see grasshoppers cut up, do you, Mother?" - -Mrs. Moore protested that she had no interest in grasshoppers under any -circumstances, so the plan to hear Thirteen stood. - -"We just want to show you as many of the dear places we love to visit as -possible," said Katherine, crossing her arms on the back of the seat -Mrs. Moore occupied. "We could never walk to more than one, but with the -machine you can see a number. Only you mustn't suppose that we have -machines when we see them. No, indeed, we walk or we hire a nice old -poky horse and runabout from the livery stable. The horse may be almost -an extinct animal in other places, but he's still a great favorite up -here." - -Thus she was whirled along the river road, through their favorite picnic -spots, from hamlet to hamlet while tea-house after tea-house flashed -into view and were pointed out with accompanying tales of affectionate -or funny reminiscences by the Hampton girls. - -At one, a large and ugly cat was always to be expected at every party. -The woman who ran the tea-house had taken for her motto, "Love me, love -my cat," and its baleful green eyes watched hungrily every mouthful that -passed through the patrons' lips. - -Doris remembered an afternoon when she and Gloria and the great Mary -Marvington, of the Junior class, had taken tea there, and Gloria had -unwittingly put her foot on the cat's tail under the table, the cat -howled, and Gloria sat stonily, her face white, trying to think what -that _awful_ sound could be. - -"The cat _wouldn't_ stop howling, of course, because Gloria _didn't_ -lift her foot, and Mary Marvington was in _hysterics_, so I leaned under -the table and removed poor Gloria's foot from the poor cat's tail, and I -think old Tabby is running yet." - -Lilian, Katherine and Peggy screamed with delight at Doris' very much -embellished story. - -Mrs. Moore's eyes were sparkling now, and she almost had to pinch -herself to realize that she was, for the first time in her life, in -college. - -When Jim set them down outside the big recitation hall, where she was -actually to attend class with Peggy, she smoothed her coat with happy -anticipation, and perhaps the full wonder of Thirteen came to this -shabby little woman, with grey in her hair, as radiantly as it came -twice a week to these Hampton girls, who picked up snatches of -everything under the sun, and who learned without the miserable grind, -an easy style of writing that set them apart from the girls who had -never had Thirteen. - -"If all their classes are like this," thought Mrs. Moore, "I should -think they'd rave in their letters about the school part of it more than -anything else." - -But alas! Their classes all like that! Only one was like it. The others -were too apt to be nightmares of mathematics or agonies of Greek tragedy -and Lyric poets or merciless written lessons in medieval history. - -Dinner at Ambler House was the next thing on Mrs. Moore's program, and -she listened to that roar of conversation and laughter that always began -as soon as grace had been said in the dormitory dining-rooms. - -Fifty-four girls, all talking and joking at once, and yet one never -heard a loud voice. - -"They are nice girls," thought Mrs. Moore. - -After dinner it had been planned that Lilian should have her mother -alone until theater time, when they were all going to a musical comedy -which happened to be in town that night, direct from New York. - -But Mrs. Moore, who noticed that Peggy was already dressed for the -theater, asked her quietly to come also. - -"It's about your friend; I hoped I'd have a word with you," little Mrs. -Moore began when she and her daughter and Peggy were comfortably propped -against the cushions. - -"Myra?" asked Peggy, doubtfully, for she was the only person who might -possibly occasion the sad and foreboding expression in the older woman's -eyes. - -"Myra!" echoed Mrs. Moore in astonishment, fingering the violets at her -waist, which had been revived for wear to the play. "Myra! No, indeed. -No, it was Gloria Hazeltine I was troubling over." - -Peggy laughed. "Oh, it would be very foolish troubling over _her_," she -said; "she's freshman president, you know----" - -"Yes, I know." - -"And the prettiest girl in Hampton." - -"Undoubtedly." - -"And she's the best dressed----" - -"Of course, my notions of dress are old fashioned, but even I could see -that." - -"And she's rich----" - -"Well, I can't help it, Peggy; I saw into that girl's heart to-day--a -mother can--even though I'm not her mother--and she's not happy." - -"Mother!" cried Lilian. "Why, Gloria is simply bubbling with happiness. -Don't you think anybody would be perfectly _radiant_ who had all she -has?" - -"I wonder if you couldn't find it out, Lilian, and see if you couldn't -help her in some way--she----" - -Peggy brushed away the thought of the incongruity of Lilian Moore, very -much one of the masses in Hampton, acting as confidante and comforter to -the lofty Gloria, whose position set her up to twinkle before the -worshipful freshmen, star fashion. - -"I don't think anything is really bothering Gloria," she said gently, -"and there'd be no way for any of us to find out what it was if there -were." - -And she changed the subject to the entertainment before them. - -Ambler House had taken the first row in the balcony, for from this -vantage point the girls, their bare arms leaning on the polished rail, -could stare down and pick out their faculty friends and their celebrity -acquaintances, and, also, they got a better view of the stage, and could -hear the music to better advantage than from any other seats. - -One of the girls of the house was given an orchestra ticket and was thus -bought off from her position in the theater's "rubber row," as their -chosen place was most inelegantly called. - -"Now, Mrs. Moore, I'll just take your coat and then you lean over and -look at anybody you like. Nobody minds being stared at. Everybody's used -to it, and if a girl downstairs is wearing an especially good-looking -dress, she'll stand up and turn around and gaze about the audience for a -moment so that we can be sure to get its effect. That's what _always_ -happens," Peggy explained blithely to their guest. - -Mrs. Moore hadn't been to the theater often, anywhere. So that, in -itself, was a pleasure. But to sit in a theater crowded with girls, all -in evening dress as they would have gone to a ball, their throats and -arms white in the glare of the electric lights, was a -never-to-be-forgotten experience. - -The play was a dashing affair, all beauty and melody, and the -irrepressible audience hummed the catchy airs between acts. - -Also there was the customary promenade during the intermission. - -The girls from the balcony went downstairs, and, threading their way -through the crowded aisles in which the girls were chatting, found the -seat of some friend and leaned gracefully near her for a few moments. - -And the talk usually ambled along something like this: - -"My dear! Aren't you crazy about it? Honestly I never heard anything -like that chorus--hm, hm, hm, hm,----" - -"Those costumes! My dear, did you ever see anything so fragile? -Perfectly hectic! But the colors--I'd give anything to have a winter -suit made on that grey and silver _motif_----" - -"Her voice!" - -"His eyes!" - -"That step they did was perfectly beautiful--don't you think we could -work it out by ourselves? Watch carefully if they bring it in again; I -can follow it all up to that little kick she does and the half turn in -the air----" - -"What a perfectly stunning gown! Why in the world didn't you save it for -Junior Prom? Well, you may have others, but I'm sure I never saw you in -anything more becoming--it's a _darling_, Dotty; look at Helen's _cute_ -gown!" - -"They say this made an awful hit in New York--do you think it's true -that May Hastings is really going on the stage when she graduates? Why, -I should think her people would feel terribly. But it would be a -thrilling life, wouldn't it?" - -With a final burst of music, the entire company crowded the stage in one -of those hurrahing finales, and the girls from Ambler House gathered up -their wraps and made all haste for the stairs. - -Outside Peggy summoned a taxi, and Mrs. Moore, Lilian, Katherine and -herself climbed in. - -"The station in time for the 11:10!" she called to the chauffeur, and in -an instant Mrs. Moore was being whisked away from her one bright day of -college. - -For she had not felt like incurring the extra expense of staying longer, -and Peggy and Katherine had been unable to think of a tactful means of -arranging that part of it themselves. So they had simply crowded all -they could for her into one day so that she would have a typical picture -of the rush of college life to take back to her small town with her. - -"Well," said Peggy, holding up her face to be kissed just as the train -came in, "how did you like college? What impression did it make on you?" - -And little faded Mrs. Moore clasped her hands before her while her eyes -shone mistily. - -"Why, I think"--her voice came huskily mingled with the throb of the -engine--"it is better than any of my dreams, and you dear girls have -been the best of all." And then she kissed Peggy. - -CHAPTER XI - -A SERIOUS DISCUSSION - - "Just one college, - And that's the college we sing to: - Just one college, - And that's the college for us!" - -The egotistical song of Hampton came out to Peggy from the door of -Myra's room when she stopped before it on her way home from class. - -A comfortable fudge-eating group looked up from the Morris chair and the -couch as she entered. - -"'Lo, Peggy," said Gertie Van Gorder, interrupting the song and waving -with a piece of fudge towards an unoccupied chair. "Sit down, Peg." - -"Can't," said Peggy. "Is Katherine here?" - -"Nope," said Katherine's voice from behind a pillow. "I'm up at gym -having a--c-c--brr-r--" the pillow was made to shiver--"a cold shower!" - -"Come on home, Kat, you wretch," laughed Peggy; "I've had a present from -Mr. Huntington." - -"_Who_," demanded Gertie, impertinently, "is Mr. Huntington?--and why -didn't you have him to our house dance?" - -Peggy and Katherine laughed. - -"He's an old man, silly,--and one of my very best friends; in fact, he -sent me to college, and his grandson is Jim that you all met, because I -_did_ have him to the house dance." - -"Well, then," pursued Gertie still inquisitive, "what was his present?" - -"Something good?" inquired Myra, sliding to the edge of her seat. - -"If it is, we're all coming," smiled Gertie graciously. - -"Well," Peggy admitted, "it's--salted almonds. Five pounds of them--I -suppose------" - -But she was the last one in the room. The group had fled with a rushing -sound down the hall and were already murmuring their appreciation in -Suite 22. - -"Save _some_ for me," mocked Peggy, when she overtook them. - -"Nice Mr. Huntington," said Gertie amiably, "nice, poor cheated Peggy. -Her shall have one--just one, mamma said,--slap your wrists------" - -"Gertie, I'm going to put you up on the hill one of these days," laughed -Peggy. On the hill was a certain state institution which visitors to the -town were always annoyingly mistaking for the college. - -"But then, visitors are always funny," as Gloria had once explained. -"One of them asked me where I came from and I said Iowa. She looked at -me a minute and then said, 'Will you please say that again?' Obligingly -I repeated 'Iowa.' 'Isn't that odd?' she said then. 'How strangely you -_do_ pronounce it. Now _I've_ always heard it called Ohio.'" - -At the thought of Gloria, the salted almonds became bitter in Peggy's -mouth, and she made a little face of distress. - -"Kaddie, _do_ you think Gloria isn't as happy as she might be?" she -inquired of her room-mate. - -With the quick facility of college girls for jumping from the most inane -and frivolous pleasantries to the most serious attitude of mind, -Katherine answered thoughtfully. - -"Peggy, how could she help being happy?" - -This question certainly appeared a staggerer on the face of things. - -"Happy?" trilled Doris Winterbean, "Why, I saw her yesterday going to -vespers in the _loveliest_ Belgian blue velvet suit mine eyes have ever -beheld. Happy! My _dear_! I'm free to say that if my own friend Self had -been clad in such Consider-the-Lilies raiment, _I'd_ have gone to -vespers _dancing_!" - -"Don't be silly," said Peggy. - -"Well," finished Doris defiantly. "Please satisfy our curiosity and show -us how such a suspicion ever crept into that woolly little head of -yours." - -She dodged Peggy's pillow as it came hurtling at her with good aim, and -then sat pensively with hands clasped over her knees as if to listen to -a tearful tale. - -"I'd never have noticed it, I admit," said Peggy. - -"Of course not," chorused the nut-eaters. - -"You know," interposed Katherine, "sometimes I think people who aren't -in college, you know,--like Mrs. Moore, just can't imagine a life like -ours, all happy and independent and so arranged that nothing serious -could _possibly_ creep in to trouble us. So if a girl seems abstracted, -or just resentful of too close scrutiny, as perhaps Gloria was, she is -apt to jump------" - -"No, no, I can't believe that," said the foolish voice of Doris. "Mrs. -Moore wouldn't jump. Anything that is less a tax on our credulity, -Kathie, but not that,--not _jump_." - -"Take the nuts away from that girl. They are beginning to have a bad -effect, in fact, nutty," shrilled Peggy. - -"As I was going to say," continued Katherine imperturbably, "people like -Mrs. Moore jump at conclusions------" - -"O-oh," murmured Doris. "That explains it. I wish you'd said that -before. It's quite all right, Kathie, now that you've made yourself -clear. The fault was all mine." - -"Doris," snapped Myra Whitewell, pinching her, "will you be serious?" - -"I'm so serious, I'm going home. You hurt." - -"Oh, Doris, do come back; don't act like--like------" - -"Like a freshman, I suppose? Well, I am a freshman. And I guess I will -go back to my room and be serious all by myself." - -"You needn't go and be mad, Doris." - -"Well, you needn't pinch me." - -Such comic dismay was registered on the faces of the group that Doris' -intention to play the spoilsport fled in a burst of laughter from her -pouting lips. - -"_Gooses_!" she cried at them. - -"Doris, you mean geese," corrected Myra, "but it is no term to apply to -a group of perfect ladies anyway." - -They were back again in the favorite freshman style of badinage, and the -atmosphere that had threatened to become tense was eased perfectly. - -"To go back------" began Peggy. - -The rippling notes of irresponsible song came from Gertie. - -"Do you think there's any intelligence in this group of highly cultured -persons?" complained Peggy. "Because I don't. I wanted to have you girls -help me about a real problem----" - -"But not our problem, Peggy," reminded Katherine; "in fact it's none of -our business." - -"It's Glory's, Glory's, hallelujah's," chanted Doris as an apropos -contribution to the talk. - -"Oh, I never heard anything so perfectly baffling as you people," cried -Peggy in despair. "Here I was going to have a serious discussion----" - -"Serious discussion!" gasped Gertie Van Gorder. "Quick, girls, pass -Peggy some more of her own nuts." - -Even while the box was being passed, the irrepressible roomful took up -the Hampton song where Peggy had interrupted them when she found them in -Myra's room. - - "Just one college, - And that's the college we sing to: - Just one college, - And that's the college for us. - There's neighbor Holyoke over the way-- - There's just one college for us! - But she can neither dance nor play,-- - There's just one college for us. - Just one college, - And that's the college we sing to. - Just one college, - And that's the college for us. - Oh, Vassar has a noble site-- - There's just one college for us! - But men, men, men are her delight-- - There's just one college for us!" - - - - -CHAPTER XII--THE AUCTION - - -"Peggy, look at that sign!" - -The room-mates were standing before the students' bulletin board down in -the note-room. - -"It's bridge, I suppose," said Peggy idly. - -"Bridge! No, it isn't. Look! it isn't that kind of auction." - -Breathlessly then they read the alluringly artistic letters, and made -out with difficulty: - - - Auction! - Big auction. - Everybody come. - - - - Beautiful clothes, evening dresses, lingerie, furs, everything - for the wardrobe of the college girl to be auctioned off - positively second-hand. Money must be paid on the spot. - - ---- _The Weldon House Girls._ - -"That's Gloria's house," said Peggy. - -"Yes," said Katherine, "and all of those girls have so many clothes they -don't know what to do with them. I think it is an awfully good idea to -sell some of them this way." - -"I've never been to one of those auctions before. Usually it's just kept -in the house. Each girl sells what she doesn't want, and any other girl -in the same house who has seen and envied that particular garment can -buy it. Donna Anderson got some lovely evening slippers that way in her -house for fifteen cents, and when they were cleaned they were just as -good as new." - -"I can think of lots of Gloria's things I'd like." - -"Yes, especially that Belgian blue velvet suit the girls were talking -about." - -Both girls laughed at the idea of Gloria selling her new things. - -"Don't you worry about those girls," said Katherine finally, "they'll -just auction rags and tatters and get good prices for them, too." - -"Have you got some spare money to go with?" - -"A little--about seven dollars. At the rate some of those sales are -made, I ought to be able to get quite a complete outfit for that." - -"And I've a little. I haven't counted just how much. But of course we -can get some more from the bank." - -When they trailed into Ambler House for luncheon they found the greatest -interest and excitement reigning. - -The auction was in the air, and nobody could think of anything else. - -"Just little tiny no-account auctions,--why, some house is having one -every day, but who ever heard of a wholesale kind like this?" cried -Doris. "I certainly will be there." - -Since the sign, for all its artistic printing, had neglected to say what -day the auction would be held, Ambler House sent a deputation over to -Weldon to find out. - -Weldon House sent back word, "Saturday afternoon, of _course_," so that -part of it was settled, and approved by everybody. - -Peggy and Katherine went in no small state of excitement. It was a new -kind of amusement so far as they were concerned. - -The freshmen from Ambler House were almost the only members of the first -class to attend. - -The freshmen in other campus houses were not so precocious as this -singularly self-confident crowd, and did not feel like rushing in where -something was going on that was beyond their experience. - -As soon as the Amblerites stepped inside of Weldon House, they noticed a -conspicuous poster with a hand inked on it pointing, and the single -word, "Upstairs." - -The matron of Weldon House was standing before the sign with a curious -expression puckering her lips, when the gay little group swept by. - -Once upstairs, there was another poster, a more helpful one, this time, -"Go to Room 27." - -The upper hall was full of other anxious buyers plodding their way in -the direction indicated by the guide-post. Room 27 belonged to a most -gracious Junior, Zelda Darmeer. - -It was characteristic of Zelda that her walls were decorated with the -mottoes, "No studying aloud," and "Never let your studies interfere with -your regular college course." - -The auction was already in progress when Peggy, Katherine and their -companions stepped inside. - -It was being conducted on the most informal lines. Whenever a girl had -anything to auction, she acted as her own auctioneer, and when the -others thought she had taken enough time, one of them serenely set up in -competition. - -The chairs were piled with soft blue chiffons, dainty white -under-garments, and plumed hats and mangey furs. - -"Put this up, somebody. Who belongs to this? Put this up. I want to bid -on it!" One of the guests was rudely waving a silver-spangled scarf that -had slipped from a chair nearby and fallen at her feet. - -"Yes, in a minute," came a business-like voice, "that's mine. Only been -worn three years, and has got over two hundred perfectly good spangles -left on it. Only eight hundred came off." - -Peggy and the others joined the guests already there, sitting quietly -down on the floor in their midst. For floors are vastly more used at -college than anywhere else except, perhaps, in the nurseries. Few people -realize the solid comfort there is in floors. They are not simply -objects lying flatly and dispiritedly beneath our feet to be trodden -upon, but they make the most delightful divans and seats in the world, -and possess a superior seating capacity. - -At least that was the way the Hampton girls found it, and during -vacation time they often outraged a parent or relative by proceeding to -sit down and be comfortable, if it chanced that every real chair was -taken. - -That the goods to be sold should repose in the chairs, and the customers -should sit on the floor, seemed highly natural to Peggy and Katherine, -and a very satisfactory economy of space all round. - -"Now this," Zelda was standing on the wabbly heap of cushions that -constituted the platform, "_this_ is my well-known blue chiffon dress. -Everybody knows and can testify to its wearing qualities. This dress has -appeared at every dance and reception since the opening of the term. It -has shown up regularly about four times a week, and has been universally -admired. - -"Now this dress"--she held it up conscientiously so that the light shone -through it and it was seen to be more or less in shreds in certain -places, but still presenting a pleasing ensemble, nevertheless. - -"There are the marks of honorable service about this dress. It has lots -of good times to remember. I was never unhappy in it once, and that's a -boast that any gown might be proud of. Now, girls, I got this in Boston -just before I came to college at the beginning of this year, and I went -to Hollander's for it and I paid eighty dollars. I'm tired of the dress -now, but there are at least five good more wears out of it. It always -_looks_ dear and _sweet_ once it gets on. The price of this dress is -four dollars," she wound up. - -There were two ways of auctioning. According to them, you either set -your own price and the bidders' contest simply went on to see which -would be the first, or you offered the object after the approved auction -custom and the bidders ran up the price as high as it would go. - -Zelda had a conscience. Had she not held the gown before the light in -that frank fashion, the beauty of the frayed garment might have turned -some freshman's head to the extent of fifteen dollars or more, and it -had served its purpose for Zelda--she wanted a few dollars spending -money, and getting rid of her old things was a quick method of obtaining -it. - -When the price of the blue chiffon was named, Lilian Moore nearly fell -over on the floor. She had been straining forward across Katherine -Foster's knee, her eyes covetous and hungry. - -She had not come expecting to buy anything. She had merely "been dragged -along," as the girls said, and she had hoped to find enough pleasure in -watching the others purchase the wonderful second-hands. - -But that pleasure was gone now. Suddenly, as she realized that this -wonderful, shimmering blue butterfly of a dress was within her reach, -she burned with a sudden fire to have it. - -For Lilian, who, under the Ambler girls' teaching, had come to get -together a fairly good school-day wardrobe at small cost, had never yet -possessed a real evening dress. - -She had gone to party after party, reception after reception and dance -after dance, always meekly and shamefacedly arrayed in the white -simplicity that had been her graduation dress at high school the spring -before. Now, staring her in the face with soft blue intensity, was -Opportunity, and she meant to seize upon it. - -"Me," she cried out, like a child in her eagerness. "I want it, Miss -Darmeer. _Here's_ the four dollars!" - -Her spending money for weeks was poured extravagantly into Zelda's hand, -and the wonderful gown was thrown lightly over her trembling arm. - -For a little while at least--until the gorgeous thing actually dropped -to pieces--she would appear as well-dressed, as beautiful and as fragile -as the other girls, with her hitherto covered shoulders glistening -charmingly into view and her arms bare and bright almost to the -shoulder. - -At this moment Gloria came in from her own room, her fair face flushed, -and her arms laden. There was a curious hauteur, that was foreign to her -accustomed manner, clinging about her, somehow. - -And the very first thing that she put up was the wonderful suit of -Belgian blue! - -As she mounted the swaying pile of cushions, her expression never -softened to the hilarity that the occasion had held up till now. - -The light gleamed over the wonderful blue of the thing in her arms. - -"A suit," she began, in that voice the freshmen worshipped, "a blue -suit. Tailored to fit me. Do for any tall girl. The lining is, as you -see, a good quality taffeta," she turned the coat conscientiously inside -out, "and a blue silk underskirt goes with the skirt. I've worn this -three times. I don't think very many people saw it, for it was only to -chapel and vespers and----" - -A laugh interrupted her. That was rather scathing of her, those of her -classmates who were present thought. For they were required to attend -chapel and vespers and didn't like the implication that they neglected -their duty. - -"Kaddie," whispered Peggy, "do you suppose she's got so many -clothes--that--that three wearings is--enough?" - -She gasped at the very idea of such a thing. The condition of the -chiffon gown that Zelda had sold was more like her own things by the -time she had done with them. She could not fancy any one parting with -something they had scarcely become even used to yet. - -"Maybe it isn't becoming to her." - -"Oh, Kaddie!" - -Katherine looked again at the figure of Gloria with her blue burden over -her arm and saw that she had spoken carelessly. - -The blue of the suit brought out the blue of the eyes in a dazzling -fashion. The triumphant red and gold of Gloria's hair and eye-lashes -flamed more like those of a Norse goddess than ever. - -"What am I offered? I can't advertise"--(the ghost of a smile did quirk -her lips here for an instant)--"as Zelda did, that this suit has known -only happy times. It's--had to take its chances. But such as it is--it's -ready for your offers." - -She stood expectantly, the suit lifted a little on her arm. - -"Twenty-five," lazily called a senior from the back of the room. - -"I'm offered twenty-five," said the auctioneer, "and I'm--still -listening." - -"Thirty," piped Hazel Pilcher eagerly. - -"Forty," jumped the senior's voice from the back of the room. - -"Forty-one," hesitated Doris Winterbean. - -There was no more bidding. Doris opened her check-book and wrote the sum -which had purchased the shining wonder that had lately been the property -of the freshman president. She knew that suit had never cost less than a -hundred, and she was more than satisfied. Its former wearing rather lent -it grace than detracted from its value, considering who the wearer was. - -"I was going to buy a new suit and a spring coat for next term," said -Doris, "but this will have to do instead of both now,--and I'd rather -have it." - -But nothing else that was put up by the others, or by Gloria herself, -brought anything like that price--none even yielded so high a percentage -of its original cost. - -Gloria offered waists, which went for prices such as fifty cents, or, at -the highest, a dollar. Then she held up an adorable kimono, direct from -Japan, that all the girls had envied and coveted. But beautiful kimonos -are luxuries, whereas suits of some kind are necessities. So her -sacrifice met with no such fortune as the blue suit had called forth. -Most of the girls didn't attend college auctions with their check-books. -Doris Winterbean was a single foresighted exception. - -"Isn't it terrible to see those beautiful things going for a few -pennies?" said Peggy. - -"It is," nodded Katherine. "What can that girl be thinking of?" - -"Thinking of turning into a savage, I should say," Peggy speculated in -answer. "You can see she isn't going to have many clothes left." - -"She looks as picturesque as ever, anyway," sighed Katherine. "It's too -bad there are not more of our classmates here to see her." - -"Yes, she was certainly a lucky choice for president," agreed Peggy. - -"Your choice." - -"Well, my choice first and the class's afterwards, and I'm sure we're -both proud of our good taste." - -The radiant one was again holding up an article of apparel before their -interested gaze. - -"Now, this," she began her advertisement, "is all of handmade lace----" - -An imperative knock sounded on the door. - -Every girl in the room started nervously. For auctions, while not -against any college regulation, were not exactly the sort of thing that -would meet with a matron's approval when indulged in to the wholesale -extent of this one at Weldon House. - -Perhaps that puzzled and anxious matron they had seen downstairs had -followed the directions on the sign and was even now upon the threshold. -How annoying, when there were many delectable and unsold articles still -lying negligently over the chair backs. - -"Well," cried Gloria, in the midst of her harangue, "come in." - -But the door opened only a crack and a muffled voice came through it. - -Zelda Darmeer felt a certain responsibility since it was her room, but -she would literally have had to wade through six rows of husky girls to -get to the door. - -She stood up anxiously. - -"Peggy Parsons, go and see what it is, will you, please?" she begged, -her face dark with annoyance. - -Peggy, by clutching at the knees and then the shoulders of the girls on -either side, arose with difficulty and went out into the hall. - -What she saw there made her shut the door behind her. - -The matron, just as they had feared, was outside the door. But there was -another woman with her. A horrid-looking woman, Peggy thought, very -different from any one usually seen in campus houses. - -The matron's face was troubled, and Peggy felt instinctively that it was -something more than their reckless auction that was causing her -uneasiness. - -The other woman's expression was sullen and aggressive. - -She came forward threateningly as Peggy came out, but in a moment fell -back with a scowl, as the light from the window at the end of the hall -streamed more clearly over the little figure. - -"That's not Miss Hazeltine," she said snappishly. - -"No," murmured the matron, still with that look of doubt and distaste. -"This isn't one of my girls at all. Are you--perhaps--a friend of Miss -Hazeltine's?" - -"I hope I'm one of her best friends," said Peggy quickly. "And"--with a -quick smile that said it all--"I'm a freshman." - -"Well, I--don't know," hesitated the matron. - -The other woman frowned. "I want my money to-day," she demanded. - -Peggy shivered as if she had suddenly been brought in touch with -something ugly and sordid, something meant to remain without her share -of experience. - -She was torn between the feeling that she had no business, in justice to -Gloria, to listen to any more--and the desire, the need to keep Gloria -away from the menace of this woman's eyes. - -She felt that Gloria was even less able to meet and cope with this -strange un-college-like situation than she, Peggy. - -For Gloria seemed of finer clay, and she herself--what was she but just -an everyday young person, glad to be alive and curious about everything -that life might hold,--happy or otherwise? - -Perhaps Gloria would hate her for stumbling upon a situation like this -which didn't concern her. - -"I think," she said to the pained matron, "I think I'd better get -Gloria. She's in there----" Then, with an inspiration, she turned -suddenly upon the unpleasant woman. - -"Won't you go down to her room," she questioned, "Number 20, and wait -until she comes? I'm sure that would be better; then if she cares to see -you, she can find you there." - -"Oh, she won't want to see me," retorted the woman. "I'll just wait -here. There ain't any other door to that room she's in, is there?" - -Peggy's heart turned sick. - -"I will send her out to you," she said quietly. "What is your name, -please?" - -"I'll tell _her_ my name," answered the woman ungraciously. - -"I think," observed Peggy in a low tone, "that you had better tell -_me_--wouldn't that be best, Mrs. Ormsby?" - -She appealed to the matron for confirmation. - -"Certainly," agreed Mrs. Ormsby, catching a little of Peggy's quiet -fire. "You shall at least send in your name." - -"Well," grudged the woman, with a hateful smirk, "just tell Miss -Hazeltine it's Hart and Bates' Dressmaking Establishment." - -"All right," murmured Peggy, and laid her hand on the door. - -The matron bit her lip uneasily, and Peggy turned the handle and went -back into the babble of bidding that was going on inside. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII--FEET OF CLAY - - -"My Morning Glory," thought Peggy, in her heart as she stood among the -auction guests. - -A feeling of loyalty filled her as she found with her glance the subject -of the disagreeable conversation that had just taken place outside the -door. - -The freshman president, all unconscious of impending disaster--or at -least of its nearness--was in the act of taking off the wonderful high -button shoes that she wore because one of the girls had expressed a -desire to buy them. - -She was laughing at the incongruity of it, and the light was dancing in -her rose-shadowed blue eyes. - -"The clothes off our backs," she was saying gayly, "anything to please -our customers----" - -And Peggy looked at the beautiful silk stockings that gleamed on her -feet when the shoes were removed. - -"Look out, Morning Glory," shouted a merry Junior, "there are some of -your freshmen worshippers present--and they say all idols have clay -feet!" - -Peggy's heart skipped a beat, and Gloria seized the shoes uncertainly as -if to put them on again. The room burst into a shout of laughter, and -Gloria ducked her flaming head gracefully and laughed with the rest. - -"My shoes!" she cried, with the laughter still in her voice, as she held -them up for sale, "right off the clay feet----" - -"Gloria!" cried Peggy reluctantly. - -"In just a minute," answered the beautiful girl, "I'm busy selling -_these_. Do you want to bid something? Then----" - -"Gloria," urged Peggy again, for she had caught a faint but impatient -tap on the door at her back. She held the knob, and she felt it turn -under her grasp. She knew she was not as strong as the horrible woman -outside. - -"There's--somebody waiting to see you." - -Gloria paused, swaying on the uncertain heap of cushions, with a flush -of annoyance coloring her face. Then all at once she looked directly -into Peggy's eyes, and understood. - -"I'll come," she said, quickly, dropping the shoes with a thud on the -floor, and descending from the teetering platform. - -"You haven't sold those shoes to any one yet," reminded Zelda Darmeer; -"they still belong to you." - -"That's so," assented Gloria abstractedly, and slipped into them. - -With their button sides loose and flapping grotesquely against her -silken ankles, she shuffled with what dignity she might towards the -door. Peggy took her hand from the knob, and Gloria disappeared into the -corridor. - -There was silence in the room for a second after she had gone. - -Then the babble began again, not of bidding this time, but of -conjecture, laughter and jests. - -"Mystery!" observed Zelda Darmeer, hunching up her shoulders. - -"Who _is_ out there, Peggy?" some one demanded. "Don't keep us in -suspense." - -"Yes, who's there?" cried the others. - -"The--the matron," said Peggy, truthfully. "She came up and----" - -"Well, she needn't blame Morning Glory for this auction," Zelda Darmeer -started up; "I got up this auction, with two of the people from the -first floor, to sell off our old duds. We didn't even know Glory was -coming into it, but when she heard it she seemed to be keen about it, -so--but it isn't her fault and I'll tell Mrs. Ormsby so----" - -She was forcing her way through the crowd in good earnest. The six rows -of girls were stepped on and trodden under foot ruthlessly as she -proceeded towards the door. - -Peggy again sprang into position as guard. "Don't," she cried out, and -then added in a more natural voice: "You've got us all here, now go on -with the auction." - -"Oh," said Zelda, mystified, but amenable, "all right. I suppose she'll -be back in a minute, and Ormsby can't do much anyway." - -The auction went merrily forward, but Gloria didn't come back. - -After an hour or so, when Peggy was sure the woman must have gone and -the trying interview, whatever it was, must be over, she slipped from -the room and went fearfully down the hall toward Number 20. - -She knocked on the door, and entered when a cold "Come" sounded. - -Gloria was seated shoeless on the couch, her red-gold hair in disarray, -a frightened, harassed look in her wide eyes. - -"Gloria," stammered Peggy, "do you want to talk to me?" - -Gloria shot her a quick glance, searching, appealing and yet at the same -time resentful. - -"It depends," said Gloria. "Do you like me very much?" - -"Very much," returned Peggy simply. - -"Well, then," flung out Gloria unexpectedly, "I sha'n't tell you." - -"Sha'n't tell me--because I like you?" cried Peggy indignantly. "Why, I -never heard of such a thing!" - -"Do you like me as well as you do Katherine?" the strange girl pursued. - -A vision of Katherine, familiar, dear, loyal,--her own room-mate, rose -mistily before Peggy's eyes. - -"No," she said, truthfully, "of course not." - -"Oh," Gloria answered, "then it isn't like the rest. Perhaps I can talk -to you anyway. I know that it was your efforts that made me president, -though, in the first place. Why did you do that?" - -"Because I knew you were the girl for the place." - -"But I wasn't." - -"I think you have proved yourself to be all we hoped, and more." - -"But you don't--know about things." - -"I know a good deal. The freshmen swear by you. They would follow your -example----" - -"My example!" - -"Yes, and they couldn't have a better pattern, Gloria." - -"Oh, well, you are as bad as the rest. Please go and leave me. There's -no use. I haven't anybody--go quickly, please----" - -"Now, Gloria, you've been saying the strangest things. From your very -odd remarks I gather that if I--didn't like you much, you'd think that -made me a better confidante. Now, I can't hate you even to please you. I -like you--awfully much--and did from the moment you came into our room -at the beginning of the year----" - -"It has nothing to do with my being president?" - -"Not a thing in the world!" - -With a little shuddering sob, Gloria reached for Peggy's hand, and in an -instant her shaking shoulders were held fast in Peggy's reassuring -clasp. - -"Everybody looks up to me so----" - -"Yes," said Peggy, "and they ought." - -"They ought not! Peggy, it wasn't good for me, such sudden prominence! -At home where I lived I was just one of a good many. I went abroad and -traveled around and did not have an opportunity to establish much of a -place for myself with any group. My father and mother are indulgent, but -I've often heard my mother say she wished I didn't have red hair. And -here the girls are crazy about it----" - -Peggy smoothed the radiant hair in question, while a sudden smile curved -her crooked little mouth. - -"Oh, Gloria, child," she laughed, "I can see your trouble isn't going to -be such a bugaboo after all. Go on and tell me now." - -"And I've never managed my own money----" - -"Now we're coming to it," thought Peggy. - -"And, Peggy, you may not believe it, but we aren't so very rich, after -all. I know that everybody says I'm a millionaire, but--we haven't -anything so very much, really. And I was always the first one asked to -contribute to everything--and I had to give quite a bit as -president----" - -"Ye-es," mused Peggy, "I never thought of that side of it." - -"And I was expected to wear the most wonderful clothes--I heard the -girls make the remark that Glory Hazeltine never wore the same evening -dress twice--and--and I was vain. I've seemed indifferent, Peggy, I -know, but in my heart I was vain. I'm just beginning to find myself -out." - -"You've found yourself out wrong," mused Peggy aloud, "and you are no -vainer than any other girl would be in your position and with your -assets." - -"Well, then, I'm sorry for the others." - -"Your story is that you were fiendishly extravagant, isn't that all?" - -"All? Oh, Peggy!" - -"Well, most of us have that failing to fight--and some have reasons to -make it harder to win. But anyway, girlie, that doesn't seem very awful, -after all. You know how the stores are? The dressmaking shops run after -the popular girls and beg for their trade and offer them special prices -and say, 'Oh, my dear, I shouldn't bother about paying now--just let it -go on the account.' And the account seems so elastic--and you just order -a gown or suit whenever you imagine you need one, and they are forever -calling you up by phone and saying they have something extra nice----" - -"I don't know," said Peggy thoughtfully; "I've found most of the stores -in this town wonderfully lenient. They will carry an account on and on, -and if you pay once a year they're satisfied. It must be a great -inconvenience to them to handle such erratic accounts, but they know the -college girls are _all_ honest and will pay sometime." - -"And I could have paid _sometime_--but I dare not tell dad. He would -think running such accounts was awful. This dressmaking place is not -like the other concerns. They--they hound--you----" - -Terror filled the baby-blue eyes. - -"Well, you should have told somebody when you found it getting beyond -you. I have quite a bit of money each month, and I don't know anything -I'd rather----" - -"Oh, but I shall not need it now." Gloria even smiled in her -realization. "You see, I've sold everything I had for what it would -bring, and--it made enough, I am thankful to say." - -"Did you tell the woman?" - -"Not how I got it, no. I endorsed Doris' check and handed it over to her -as if I had been a princess----" - -"I know your manner. Was she properly overcome?" - -"Well, no. In fact she said, 'This is but a drop in the bucket. I'll -have you persecuted.'" - -"She must have said 'prosecuted,' Gloria." - -"Well, one or the other, the effect is the same. She _has_ been -persecuting me." - -"Well, and then did you give her the rest?" asked Peggy, desirous of -hearing all of the story. - -"Yes, I poured into her hands the full amount the bidders had given me -in return for all my beautiful kimonos, gowns, waists and underwear." - -"Sounds like an elevator call in a department store." - -"Doesn't it? But she didn't know. She counted it out and returned me two -dollars and said I'd given her too much. I was thankful there had been -enough. Oh, Peggy, Peggy, Mrs. Ormsby saw it all. She is a brick. But I -feel so mean, so mean----" - -"You needn't. Now you've learned, and you can go around here in -sackcloth and ashes and you will be the 'freshmen's handsome president' -still. That's what the upperclass girls call you. So it will come out -all right. And nobody guessing anything." - -"You know," Gloria was laughing through her tears, "the reason I -wouldn't tell you was because I couldn't bear to risk seeing your stare -of disillusionment and loss of faith--in case you felt about me as some -of the others do. I don't know why they should, but they act as if I -were sort of superhuman. And all my worry about your attitude for -nothing! I've just been plain Gloria Hazeltine to you all the time, -haven't I, Peggy? And to Katherine. I'm--kind of glad. It's awful to -have people holding such ridiculous ideals about you." - -"No, it isn't. When you're graduated, you will look back on it as -something very precious--and very wonderful. It is one of the best -things that can come to any one--such idealization as you have met with -at the hands of our class. And the only way to do is to live up to it, -to make it as true as truth." - -"That's what I was doing, in a way," explained Gloria woefully. "But -only to the most material side of it. I wanted to live up to their ideal -of me in wonderful clothes--in generous subscriptions, and all that kind -of thing." - -"Well, young lady, now you right-about face and live up to the other -side of it. They would follow you and love you if you were as shabby as -our wash-lady. So you can go as simply dressed as you want, and they -will do nothing but imitate you. It's a wonderful power you have, -Gloria." - -Gloria brushed back the straying hair from her tear-stained face. - -"I never thought of that, really, Peggy," she said. "Do you suppose -there is really a little something worth while in me to call forth such -feeling on the part of the class?" - -"A good deal," said Peggy. "But not--exactly what they think. You can be -even finer than they believe, though, if you'll set about it." - -"I wish I were like you, Peggy," wailed Gloria. - -"Like me! Now, Gloria Hazeltine, you know you don't. Nobody expects me -to be anything very remarkable. They love me but they have to love a lot -of faults along with me. So they love me and look _down_, and you and -look _up_." - -"You've helped, Peggy. Instead of being sorry and ashamed of myself and -realizing that I'm not as nice as they think, I'm going to turn that -energy to _being_ as nice. Do you think I can do it?" - -"I'm not from Missouri--but I cling to their motto, and I do believe you -can fulfill it for me." - -"All right, I _will_ show you. You and all of them. I'm going to -surprise you, Peggy Parsons!" - -Peggy left her room with a little sigh. - -"I've come to collect Katherine," she poked her head into Zelda -Darmeer's abode and said. - -Katherine came hastily out to her, and the two made their way to Ambler -House, the several purchases they had made carried loosely in their -arms. - -When they were comfortably enwrapped in the dear, restful, homelike -atmosphere of their own suite, Peggy gave Katherine a sketchy report of -her interview with Gloria. - -"We've had to have our finger in two college pies of very different -flavors, Kathie," she mused when the tale was done. "Our first case was -a girl who didn't have recognition _enough_--was swamped under the -weight of indifference and criticism that met her here. The other has -too much and couldn't stand it. She fell to pieces under the burden of -worship the girls insisted on placing on her. It's funny, isn't it, -Katherine?" - -"Such weeps, such weeps," laughed Katherine, not without sympathy in her -tone. "If only everybody in college could have things evened up for them -as we have. We're neither too high nor too low. We have a lovely -suite--each of us has a--nice room-mate" (Katherine smiled as she flung -this little inclusive compliment at herself), "and people like us a good -deal, but not so much that they expect more of us than is humanly -possible." - -"But I don't think we'd be any different in any situation," judged -Peggy. "Do you know, friend room-mate, I'm afraid we're hopelessly -commonplace." - -"I believe you're right," Katherine agreed stoutly, "and I'm glad _of_ -it!" - - - - -CHAPTER XIV--SPRING TERM - - -It is worth while having come through months of winter, full of varying -fortunes, to wake at last in the glory of Spring Term. - -Spring Term! Those of us who have had it,--what wouldn't we give to be -able to drift backward for a moment and feel the wonder of Spring Term -around us again? Sweet with its apple-blossoms, prodigal of its -sunshine, giving away New England in a strange manner, showing that she -possesses a wildness and radiance of youth that for three-fourths of the -year she denies. - -For Spring Term is satisfaction. There is enough of it. When its magic -first comes to the freshman she thinks there will be eons more of Spring -Terms. - -But there will not be. Only four of them in a lifetime--during those -years when the newness of life is fresh, when the power to respond sings -through every girl's heart its most exultant tune. - -A more or less bony livery horse, perked up for spring, with the -inevitable runabout, stood before each campus house's back door in those -days. - -When his hirers came down from their rooms, they undid the knot about -the hitching post and, picking up the reins, slapped them on the beast's -back and careened away, out into the wonderworld their Hampton had -become. - -Red canoes began to flash across the bright and shallow waters of -Paradise. - -Rubber-soled shoes slapped their way to the tennis courts, and their -wearers sat for hours without any alleviating shade, just to have -possession of a court at last for sixty minutes. - -"I don't know _what_ I've ever done to deserve it," said Peggy, leaning -on her window-sill beside Katherine, while the two looked out on it all. - -"I've heard the upperclass girls tell some of our freshmen when they -were homesick, 'Wait till Spring Term.' Now I understand what they -meant," returned Katherine slowly. - -"Oh, room-mate, I am glad I belong to such a world. Wouldn't it -be--wouldn't it be _terrible_ to have Spring Term come along and be a -senior--or an _alum_?" - -"Seniors graduate--I suppose they don't realize it's all for the last -time--maybe they do, though. But alums!" Katherine caught her arm and -pressed it in an odd panic. "Do you suppose we will actually some day -be--that?" she asked with a shudder. - -Peggy laughed out into the sunshine. "Not for ages and ages. Three years -more--why, that's almost the same as forever. Katherine," she changed -the subject suddenly, "I wish we had a canoe! Watch those adorable ones -on Paradise--see the drops sparkle off that paddle--oh, Kathie, let's -have one, h'mm?" - -Katherine was immediately beside herself with joy. - -"We can get one second-hand from a girl down at Weldon House," she said -joyously. "I heard about it the other day." - -Peggy demurred. "I don't want a second-hand one," she declared -decidedly. "I want a new one, that nobody has ever adventured in before -us. I don't know how to paddle though, do you?" - -"No, except that the girl at Weldon that wants to sell this one I -mentioned took me out in hers and sort of advertised it by letting me -experiment with the paddle awhile. I nearly tipped us over and she was -so anxious to have me buy the boat she never said a word." - -Within the next few days Peggy and Katherine wrote to Canada to see -about the prices of canoes. They labored long and hard in the gymnasium -pool and took the swimming tests that were necessary for a college -permit for canoe ownership. - -And then, sad, and sickening disappointment, they found that freshmen -weren't allowed to own canoes at all! - -They left the boat-house with downcast eyes, but the glory of the day -soon made them lift their gaze, and the first thing they saw was a -joyous crew of their classmates going to sea in a moist-floored -row-boat. - -In a moment life was as full of promise as ever and the two plunged down -the boat-house steps and gave their gymnasium numbers in to charter the -first craft of a similar kind that came along. - -"The water's just as--wet, under this," laughed Peggy as they finally -pushed off. - -"And the oars are just as hard to use as a paddle," cried Katherine, who -had just dropped one overboard. "Oh, thank you,--yes, we can manage it -all right; yes, _indeed_, we've had our swimming test!" This last was to -the boat-house boy who rescued the oar and who seemed overly concerned -for their safe voyage. - -"Paradise," breathed Peggy softly, a little while later, as they drifted -under the shade of the overhanging trees and looked up toward the -glowing green campus and the bright and exotic botanical gardens of -Hampton. "Only the river is named that--but it's _all_ paradise. Oh, -Katherine, Katherine, I think we've had a happy year, don't you?" - -But Katherine was not inclined at the moment to be either poetical or -retrospective. "Mercy!" she cried out sharply, "now I've caught my oar -on a root!" - -The bright days sped all too fast. A few walks around Hospital Hill, a -climb up Mt. Tom, a number of evening street-car rides when the girls -sat on the front seat outside the car just back of the motorman with the -wind blowing through their hair, a jaunt or so to a distant tea-house, a -drive behind one of the bony mares, a few negligible recitations and -examinations--and--poof!--they were gone like smoke. - -The freshmen were urged to gather up their belongings and hasten home as -soon as possible so that the campus rooms would be vacant for that -greatest drama of the spring soon to be staged at Hampton--the -commencement exercises for the senior class. - -"And you and I aren't to see a bit of it," grieved Peggy to her -room-mate. "I suppose they are keeping it all a mystery from us until we -get nearer it ourselves. Don't forget to write to me often and _often_ -this summer, Kathie,--it seems strange I'm not going to see you for so -long a time." - -"Yes, I'll write, of course, child. I'll miss you and I'll miss Hamp, -but I'll be glad to be home for a while, at that. My mother wants me and -so do the rest of the dear folks. I'm so eager to get there I don't know -what to do--and yet my eyes are all full of tears at leaving, at the -same time." - -"Well, we ought to be laughing instead of crying--neither of us got any -conditions or low grades except----" - -"Now you needn't remind me of that. I got that low grade in botany -because I couldn't draw, not because I didn't know the lessons. It's -funny if you have to be an artist for every course----" - -"Never mind, Kathie, I barely came out on the safe side of math. I'm -going to have a bonfire of my trigonometry and my old higher algebra as -soon as I get off the train at home. _They_ shall never cause anybody -else such misery." - -"I'll give you my botany book to throw in with them." - -"All right, your botany book is elected to the conflagration." - -"I know one thing that _won't_ go in." - -"What's that, my dear?" - -"A certain number of the _Hampton College Monthly_." - -A quick color swept over Peggy's face. - -Laughingly she caught her room-mate's arm and started with her on an -expedition to round up the freshmen of the house for a last half day -together while they still enjoyed their lowly state. - -Florence Thomas, Myra Whitewell, Doris Winterbean, Gertrude Van Gorder, -Lilian Moore and May Jenson they summoned out onto the campus where they -were all content to stroll, arms intertwined, meeting other groups who -were, like themselves, bidding Hampton farewell for the summer. - -It was late afternoon, with the sun streaming over everything and the -houses and trees casting their long quiet shadows over the grass, when -there drifted by a group of seniors, singing idly one of their senior -songs. - -The music of it caught Peggy's heart and she shut her eyes against the -tears. There were senior celebrities in that group--girls whom she had -known very well by sight--whom she would never see again. Part of -college they had been, and now they were humming their senior song for -the last time across that dear old campus. - -How could they bear to leave--when it was to be shut on the outside of -the college gates always--except as they flitted back through the years -in the doubtful and unenviable role of alumnae? - -With a full heart Peggy was glad she was just beginning, glad that she -would shout for her class's red lion emblem at basketball matches and -polo ground for three years more, glad that she was to return and buy, -in the pride of her sophomoreship, her little red canoe, glad that -college was still brimming over with experiences for her, as yet untried -and unguessed. - -"Come quickly, Peggy," cried Gloria Hazeltine, passing the Ambler girls -on a run, "Glee club's having a sing over by Seelye Hall. Hurry, or -you'll miss some of it." - -Glad of the opportunity to be with so great a number of girls once more -before vacation, the Ambler freshmen began to run too, and soon the -voices of the glee club carried to them. - -Through the crowd that had gathered they caught glimpses of the singers' -white dresses. - -"They're singing 'Where-oh-where,'" cried Katherine. - -And as the words of the familiar song were wafted out to them, Peggy and -Katherine smiled their queer pride and happiness into each other's eyes, -since for the first time the song applied to _Them_. - - "Where, oh, where are those verdant freshmen? - Where, oh, where are those verdant freshmen? - Where, oh, _Where_ are those verdant freshmen? - Sa-afe _now_ in the Soph'more Class!" - - - - - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEGGY PARSONS A HAMPTON FRESHMAN -*** - - - - -A Word from Project Gutenberg - - -We will update this book if we find any errors. - -This book can be found under: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35729 - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one -owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and -you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission -and without paying copyright royalties. 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