CHAPTER I—THE SERENADE

Peggy Parsons wove her curly hair into a golden braid, and stretching her slim arms above her head yawned sleepily.

“Oh, you mustn’t do that,” sniggered her room-mate out of the semi-darkness of the one-candle-power illumination. “They don’t allow it here.”

“Don’t allow what?” said Peggy, beginning to prance before the mirror to admire the fluttering folds of her new blue silk kimono, which had been given her by a cousin the week before school opened, with the delightful label, “For Midnight Fudge Parties.”

“Don’t allow what?” she repeated curiously, bobbing up and down before her reflection, “can’t I even yawn if I want to?”

“No,” her room-mate unsympathetically insisted, “they teach us manners along with our French and mathematics, and yawning isn’t one,—a manner, I mean. Yawning is enough to keep you from getting high marks. This is a finishing school we’ve come to, please remember.”

“It will finish me,” sighed Peggy, with a final whirl of blue draperies, “if I can’t do as I like. Why, I always have.”

“I’m glad I’ve got you for a room-mate, then,” said the other girl heartily. “It will be such fun to see what happens.”

Peggy blew out the candle and crept across the room, in the darkness, nearly colliding with a little rose tree that had been given to the girls to brighten their room against their possible homesickness.

“What’s going to happen now is that I’m going to sleep,” she laughed. “And I’m glad I’ve got you for a room-mate, Katherine Foster, just—anyway.”

And both girls smiled into the darkness, for their first day at Andrews had given them a sense of pleasant anticipation for the rest of the year.

Just as their vivid memories of the preceding twelve hours began to mix themselves up confusingly with dreams, the sound of singing bursting into triumphant volume under their windows caused both sleepy pairs of eyes to pop open.

“Katherine—?” breathed Peggy excitedly.

“Peggy—?” whispered Katherine, “oh, do you suppose it is?”

“Andrews opened late, and the other schools were already well into their football and basketball stage: that afternoon the Amherst team had been in town to play the local college football eleven, and there had been rumors that the glee club had been among those who cheered on the Amherst side.”

The song came up now, sweet and strong, with its sure tenor soaring almost to their window, it seemed.

Swiftly and silently the two were out of bed and had pattered across to peep down. There they were! There they really were, in the moonlight, the glee club, singing up to the open dormitory windows.

“Cheer for Old Amherst, Amherst must win. Fight to the fin-ish, Never give in. All do your best, boys, We’ll do the rest, boys, For this is old Amherst’s da—ay. Rah, rah, rah....”

Peggy felt her arm being pinched black and blue, but she was beyond caring.

“O—oh, it’s heavenly,” she sighed.

“Peggy, it’s a serenade,” breathed Katherine happily.

“Of course it is,” assented Peggy, as if she were used to this kind of thing, “and it’s a very nice one.”

“Peggy, oughtn’t you to—to throw down flowers when you’re serenaded?” Katherine demanded suddenly.

“Oh, yes, you have to,” Peggy agreed, so that she might not show how ignorant she was of the requirements of so delightful a situation.

“We haven’t any.” Katherine’s tone was forlorn and heartbroken.

“Wait,” cried Peggy, scrambling down from the window seat where she had perched, “the roses,—off the rose tree.”

And she ran to their treasured plant and seized it, jardiniere and all, and ran back to the window so that she might not miss any of the singing while she was despoiling their little tree of its blossoms. From every window in the wing a dim figure might be discerned behind the shaking lace curtains. With the plant tucked firmly under one arm Peggy leaned out dreamily.

“It’s all a lovely thing to have happen,” she said, “now I’m going to begin and throw the roses down. Ouch! Goodness,—oh, dear!”

She pricked herself on a thorn and in jerking away her hand she forgot that she was holding anything.

The rose tree toppled an instant on the window-sill and then went down, flower pot, jardinière and all, into those singing, upturned faces, two stories below. There followed a frightful crashing sound, and then a stupefied silence.

Peggy, covering her face with her hands, turned and ran from the window, jumped into bed and pulled the sheet over her head.

“Oh, they’re dead, they’re dead, and I’ve killed them,” she thought miserably to herself.

She never wanted to hear a glee-club again, she never wanted to look into the face of a living soul. This was a fine ending of a wonderful day, this was, that she should have killed, goodness knew how many fine young men, and talented ones, too. Just when they were singing up so trustingly, for her to have hurled this calamity down upon them! She shook with sobs. Oh, she had only meant to do a kind deed, a courteous deed—and she had killed them. She buried her poor little crying face deeper into the pillow.

After a few moments she felt her room-mate shaking her, and when she reluctantly uncovered her tear-stained face she was astonished to hear laughter.

“It’s all right, come back to the window quickly,” Katherine was chortling, “it’s—just great.”

Oh, the glorious shaft of light that shot across Peggy’s mental horizon! Then they weren’t dead. No one—not even a heartless room-mate could laugh at her if she had really killed them. She dashed her hand across her eyes and went back to peer cautiously down in the moonlight.

Each of the singers brandished some tiny thing in the shining white light of the moon, could it be a—flower—a—rose?

“Little Rose Girl! Little Rose Girl! We’ll sing and shout your praises o’er and o’er, To you ever, we’ll be loyal, Till the sun shall climb the heavens no more!”

Peggy caught her breath. They were all singing straight at her window,—and oh, moonlit clouds! and wonder of stars!—to her.

“Oh—oh, thank you,” she said softly, over and over, “thank you, thank you. I’m so glad you’re alive,—and I’m glad I am, too.”

Fastening the tiny flowers in their buttonholes, the glee-club began to move off. Peggy sat still in the window seat, her hands clasped tightly in her lap.

The cool moonlight drifted in around her, and she breathed it in slowly. Katherine came and curled up beside her.

“I don’t feel a bit sleepy now, do you,” she said, “and I’m glad we showed we liked the serenade.”

Peggy smiled and then she gave one of the forbidden yawns.

“Oh, it’s nice to be alive, and to be young, and to be away at school,” she murmured, disregarding Katherine’s observation. “And, just think, to-morrow we have a perfectly good new day to wake up into.”

CHAPTER II—BEING A BELLE

“To think that one of my young ladies—one of MY young ladies,” the principal repeated impressively, “should have been guilty of such a misdemeanor—”

“What’s a misdemeanor?” Peggy whispered in her room-mate’s ear as they sat in chapel and listened to an address that was evidently going to be serious for somebody.

“Sh,” said Katherine. “She means us.”

“Means us?” demanded Peggy incredulously. “Why, I never did any misdemeanors in my life.”

“As to throw—or hurl—or drop a flower-pot down to the pavement from a window in my school,” the cold voice continued.

“O—oh,” murmured Peggy, “I thought maybe she’d seen me yawn.”

“Now I am going to put my young ladies upon their honor to tell me which one of you showed so little regard for me and for the school as to conduct herself in this manner.” The principal lifted her chin in a deliberate way she had, “and as you pass out from chapel I request the young lady who has this particular thing on her conscience to come forward and tell me that it was she who did it.”

The lines of marching girls swung down the aisles, and Peggy rose with them. “I haven’t it on my conscience,” she told Katherine, “but I suppose I ought to tell her.”

“I will go with you,” offered Katherine generously. “It was just as much my fault, and I’d have done it if you hadn’t.”

But Peggy shook her head and threaded her way up the aisle to the principal’s desk.

There she paused, waiting.

“Good-morning, Miss Parsons,” the principal said pleasantly, for she had taken an especial fancy to Peggy the day before when she had been left at the school by her aunt. And looking down into that gleeful little face this morning, shining as it was with all the joy of living, and the irresponsible happiness that comes only with a free conscience, how could she dream of connecting Peggy’s approach with the confession she had requested from the girl who had dropped the rose tree.

“Good-morning,” said Peggy, her face crumpling into its funny little smile, “I didn’t mean to.”

“What? Didn’t mean to—child, are you telling me—?”

There was certainly nothing of the hangdog about Peggy.

She nodded.

“I was just as sorry as you are for a time,” she continued, “but you see it made them sing to me and I can’t be sorry about that, can I? Nobody could. It was so beautiful.”

She explained simply.

“I’m very sorry such a thing should have happened,” the principal said solemnly when the recital was over. “The other young ladies are going to see a performance of the ‘Blue Bird’ this afternoon, and this prevents your going. I cannot permit you to go, of course, after this, much as I regret it.”

Peggy turned away, a little twinge of disappointment in her heart. She had heard the girls discussing the matinée party for to-day, and she had never dreamed of not going with them. As she left the chapel Miss Carrol, the youngest teacher, timidly approached the principal.

“I am going to chaperone the girls to-day, am I not?” she asked.

“Yes, Miss Carrol.”

“I thought I’d venture to suggest that Peggy Parsons be forgiven this once—I don’t think she did anything so very terrible—and that she be allowed to come with us to the first party. Don’t you remember when you were away at school—how heartbreaking it was if you were shut out of anything, and how easily a fit of homesickness came on to blot out all the sunlight of the world? Don’t you remember—Mrs. Forest?”

Mrs. Forest didn’t remember at all. It wasn’t just because all such experiences for her had been very long ago—many women remember all the more tenderly as they grow older,—but she had set out to be a good disciplinarian, and the girls she graduated from her school must be as nearly alike as possible, she wanted them all run in the same mold of training. But Miss Carrol’s pleading voice and her eager eyes did what Mrs. Forest’s own reminiscences could not do for her—they softened her attitude toward Peggy and finally she gave her consent for Peggy to go.

Peggy, flying back to her room, her heart full of disappointment, unaware of the change in her immediate fortunes brought about by Miss Carrol, heard her name mentioned by a group at the foot of the big staircase.

“This is really a very clever paper little Miss Parsons has written for my English class,” one teacher was saying, tapping the folded sheet Peggy had labored over as the first of her work for Andrews.

“Yes?” politely inquired another. “That’s rather unusual for Andrews. We have so many beautiful girls, but so few brilliant ones. Peggy Parsons may be popular—and she may develop into a genius, but she’ll never be a belle, will she? Not like some of our girls.”

Peggy’s feet grew heavy on the stairs. She went miserably on to her room and there carefully locked the door, and went and stood before the mirror. She had never been conscious of just how she did look before. She had never thought of being beautiful, but much less had she thought of being NOT beautiful. That was too tragic. She saw a little sober face, with clear brown eyes, and goldy flyaway hair above them.

“Oh, people will only like me when I laugh,” she cried, and her face crinkled into its familiar expression of merriment, and she watched the fine dark eyebrows curve upward, and the dimples dance crookedly into the flushed cheeks.

“Ye—es,” she said slowly. “It isn’t so bad then. But I will—be a belle, anyway. You see if I’m not, I will be one and surprise them all. Maybe I’ve never tried to make myself look pretty before. I will try awfully hard now. And I’ll turn out the most wonderful belle of them all, I shouldn’t wonder. So there, now.”

She danced back from the mirror, her hair-brush in her hand.

“I’ll begin at the top,” she said, “and I’ll see what I can do.”

Just then Miss Carrol knocked at the door.

“Come in,” sang Peggy blithely, her spirits more or less restored by the prospect of the task she had set herself.

The door rattled.

“I can’t,” announced Miss Carrol’s voice.

“Oh, I forgot,” cried Peggy, and she ran to the door and turned the key. Flinging it open, she laughed up into Miss Carrol’s face. “Come in,” she invited a second time, “I’m very glad to see somebody even if you’ve only come to scold me. Have you come to scold me?”

Miss Carrol shook her head, and explained that Mrs. Forest had relented, and she was to be of the matinée party, after all.

Peggy hugged her gratefully.

“Excuse me,” she said, “for mussing up your dress, but I just had to. People have been hurting my feelings all the morning and now you come and are—kind. And it means that I can be one right now. I’ll be one for this!”

“One what?” asked the youngest teacher, puzzled. “You girls have the oddest things in your minds half the time. What is it you’re going to be now?”

Peggy hesitated, and then she came over and whispered.

“A belle,” she said with her lips near Miss Carrol’s ear. “One of the teachers said I couldn’t be one.”

To her hurt surprise, her companion threw back her head and laughed. “Oh, is that all?” she said. “Well, that’s nothing dangerous. I must run along now, Peggy, child, but all the girls are to meet in the parlor at half-past one for the matinée. We must leave promptly at that time.”

Katherine’s trunk had not arrived yet, so she planned to go right to the parlor after luncheon and wait there for the party to assemble, as she had no other dress to wear than the blue serge she had on. But Peggy left the table in a flurry of excitement and began to lay out all her prettiest things. A dainty little brown velvet suit, with a chiffon waist, and an adorable hat that came dark against her light curls promised well. She manicured her nails, humming all the while, then she steamed her face and dashed cold water on it till it was all glowing. She did her hair twice and it didn’t suit, so she took it all down and experimented with it again. Her hair curled irregularly, and did not lie sleek and smooth and flatly rippled like the hair of the girls who had theirs marcelled. So she borrowed Katherine’s electric iron and with a few swift touches sought to make her own natural, pretty hair look artificially waved.

She used powder for the first time. After rubbing her cheeks with a rough towel to keep the glow, she spread on the powder as thickly as she dared. Her nose was alluringly chalk white when she had finished. It was only talcum powder but enough of it had its effect. The girls of Andrews were not allowed to wear jewelry, except in the evening, unless it were a simple band bracelet or a tiny, inconspicuous gold chain and pendant.

So Peggy closed her jewel case with a snap against the temptation of a long gold snake bracelet with emerald eyes that would have made her feel very much more dressed up.

In the early stages of her dressing she thought she heard someone calling up the stairs, she thought there was an unusual stir of girls clattering down into the hall, but she was too engrossed in the process of becoming beautiful really to sense what might be going on. Once she even thought she heard her name, but she was just applying a precious drop of concentrated violet to the lace at her throat, and though she called out mechanically, “What,” she received no answer, and decided she had been mistaken.

At length, complete, she surveyed herself happily. “I guess I look almost as pretty as the actresses, now,” she approved. “I’ll go down to the parlor—it must be nearly half-past one.”

She went down the stairs, with a curious sense of the silence of the house. Why weren’t there more girls trooping down with her? She felt a chill of misgiving when she reached the parlor door. No laughter drifted out, no sound of chattering came from within. With a quick fear she opened the door and paused wonderingly on the threshold as a perfectly empty room met her gaze.

She was too late to start with them—perhaps she could catch up yet. She would hurry to the theater and perhaps they had waited for her in the lobby. Panting, she tore across the lawn and boarded the first street-car. It seemed to go so slowly—as if they’d never get there. She found herself tearing the little lacey handkerchief she had taken from her bag.

There was the theater. She pressed the bell, and, getting off before the car had come fully to a stop, breathless, she entered the building. No group of girls, no Miss Carrol. She looked up wildly at the clock above the ticket seller’s window. Four o’clock, it said! Almost time for the show to be over! Oh, how awful, how awful, where had the time gone? What had happened to her? Fighting back the tears at the futility of everything, she approached the ticket window.

“Are—the—Andrews girls in there?” she faltered.

That was a silly question and she knew it. Because, of course, they were in there, this was where they had been coming—and she had, too, for that matter if she could only have gotten here on time. But at the minute she could think of nothing else to say and she was conscious of a vague hope that the ticket-seller would help her, would suggest something. She would gladly buy her own ticket and get in if only she could get to their box afterward. But she didn’t know which one it was, and she didn’t know how to manage it, anyway.

“I don’t know if they are,” the ticket-seller was replying, casually. “How should I know?”

Peggy turned dejectedly away from the window. This was more than she could stand. Never in her life had she felt so little and so helpless and so—yes, so homesick. She couldn’t go back to the school and have to face possible questions. She would stay downtown somewhere until it was time for the matinée to be over and then she would return about the same time the others did.

She drifted out into the waning sunlight of the street, and looked hopelessly about her. Next the theater was the public library. This looked like a refuge and she went in and walked despondently over to the librarian’s desk.

“Please find me something to read—about—about girls having a party,” she choked.

When she was back at school, in her own room, clad once more in the loved blue silk kimono, the ordeal of dinner and curious questions over, Katherine, her room-mate, looked up from her algebra book and said suddenly,

“Oh, Peggy, we missed you so.”

“Did you?” cried Peggy wistfully. “Well, I’ve decided something. I don’t care a bit about being a belle. I’d rather get to places on time, and feel like myself,—and be just Peggy Parsons, after all.”

CHAPTER III—A BACON BAT

An eventful day for Peggy came after two weeks of school. In it began a curious series of happenings that added flavor to her whole school life, and gave her, finally, the power to be, as her room-mate laughingly said, “sort of magic.”