Peggy Parsons a Hampton Freshman Part 18

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 soph.o.m.ore 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 a.s.sortment 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 cla.s.s."

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 a.s.sociation 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 grat.i.tude.

"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."