Peggy Stewart at School Part 14

"Well, I do, Mrs. Vincent. It was every bit her own fault. She hates Tzaritza, and I love her," was Rosalie's vehement if perplexing conclusion as she cast herself upon the big dog. Tzaritza welcomed her with a grateful whine and crept closer, though she never raised her head. She was waiting the word of forgiveness from the one she loved best of all, but Peggy was awaiting Tzaritza's exoneration. Mrs.

Vincent, who had sent for the resident trained nurse, was examining Polly's arm and now said:

"It is all very distressing, but I am glad no more serious for Polly.

The arm is badly bruised and will be very painful for some time, but I can't discover a scratch. Miss Allen, will you please look after this little girl," she asked, as the sweet-faced trained nurse entered the room, her white uniform snowy and immaculate, her face a benediction in its sweet, calm repose.

"Go with Miss Allen, dear, and have your arm dressed." Polly paused only long enough to stoop down and kiss Tzaritza's head, the caress being acknowledged by a pathetic whine, then followed the nurse from the room.

Peggy was terribly distressed.

"Do you think I would better send her back to Severndale, Mrs. Vincent?"

she asked.

"Has she ever attacked anyone before, Peggy?"

"Never in all her life."

"I hardly think she will again. She may remain. Come here, Tzaritza."

Tzaritza did not stir.

"Up, Tzaritza," commanded Peggy, and the affectionate creature's feet were upon her shoulders as she begged forgiveness with almost human eloquence.

"Oh, my bonny one, how could you?" asked Peggy as she caressed the silky head. Tzaritza's whimpers reduced some of the girls to tears. "Now go to Mrs. Vincent," ordered Peggy, and the hound obediently crossed the room to lay her head in that lady's lap.

"Poor Tzaritza, you did what you believed to be your duty, didn't you?

None of us can do more. I wish some of my other problems were as easy to solve as the motives of your act. Go on with your fudge party, girls. It will prove a diversion. I must look to other matters now," and Mrs.

Vincent sighed at the prospect of the coming interview with Miss Sturgis. It was not her first experience by any means.

CHAPTER XI

BEHIND SCENES

The girls were hardly in a mood to return to their fudge-making, so Stella produced a box of Whitman's chocolates and the group settled down to eat them and discuss the events of the past exciting half hour. Polly squatted upon the rug and with her uninjured arm hauled about half of Tzaritza upon her lap. Tzaritza was positively foolish in her ecstatic joy at being restored to favor.

"Poor Tzaritza, you got into trouble because I lost my temper, didn't you? It was a heap more my fault than yours after all."

"Oh, there's nothing wrong with Tzaritza. It's the Sturgeon. Hateful old thing! I just hope Mrs. Vincent gives her bally-hack," stormed Rosalie.

"Suppose we did shout and screech? It's Sat.u.r.day night and we have a right to if we like. But what under the sun did Mrs. Vincent want of you, Peggy?"

"Oh, nothing very serious," answered Peggy, smiling in a way which set Rosalie's curiosity a-galloping.

"Yes, what _did_ she want?" demanded Polly, turning to look up at Peggy.

"Can't tell anybody _now_. You'll all know after Thanksgiving," answered Peggy, wagging her head in the negative.

"Oh, please tell us! Ah, do! We won't breathe a living, single word!"

cried the chorus.

"Uh-mh!" murmured Peggy in such perfect imitation of old Mammy that Polly laughed outright.

"Aren't you even going to tell Polly?" asked Rosalie, who had arrived at some very definite conclusion regarding these friends, for Rosalie was far from slow if at times rather more self-a.s.sertive than the average young lady is supposed to be.

For answer Peggy broke into a little air from a popular comic opera running just then in Washington and to which Captain Stewart had taken his little party only a few weeks before:

"And what is right for Tweedle-dum is wrong for Tweedle-dee," sang Peggy in her sweet contralto voice, Polly following in her bird-like whistle.

The little ruse worked to perfection. The girls forgot all about Peggy's "call down," as a summons to Mrs. Vincent's study was banned, and had a rapture over Polly's whistling and Peggy's singing, nor were they satisfied until a dozen airs had been given in the girl's very best style. Then came the story of the concerts at home, and Polly's whistling at the Masquerader's Show when Wharton Van Nostrand fell ill, and a dozen other vivid little glimpses of the life back in Severndale and up in "Middie's Haven" until their listeners were nearly wild with excitement.

"And they are to have a house party there during the holidays, girls.

Think of that!" cried Helen.

"Honest?" cried Lily Pearl, leaning forward with clasped hands, while even Juno, the superior, became animated and remarked:

"Really! I dare say you will choose your guests with extreme care as to their appeal to the model young men they are likely to meet at Annapolis, for I don't doubt your aunt, Mrs. Harold, is a most punctilious chaperon."

"Juno's been eating hunks of the new Webster's Dictionary, girls. That's how she happens to have all those long words so near the top. They got stuck going down so they come up easy," interjected Rosalie.

Juno merely tossed her head, but vouchsafed no answer. Rosalie's Western _gaucherie_ was beneath her notice. Juno's home was at the Hotel Astor in New York City. At least as much of "home" as she knew. Her mother had lived abroad for the past five years, and was now the Princess Somebody-or-other. Her father kept his suite at the Astor but lived almost anywhere else, his only daughter seeing him when he had less enticing companionship. A "chaperon" did duty at the Astor when Juno was in the city, which was not often. Consequently, Juno's ideas of domestic felicity were not wholly edifying; her conception of anything pertaining to home life about as hazy as the nebula.

"Perhaps if you ever know Tanta you'll be able to form your own opinion," answered Polly quietly, looking steadily at Juno with those wonderfully penetrating gray eyes until the girl shrugged and colored.

Stella laughed a low, odd little laugh and came over to drop upon the rug beside Polly, saying as she slipped her arm around her and good-naturedly dragged her down upon her lap:

"You are one funny, old-fashioned little kid, do you know that? Some times I feel as though I were about twenty years your senior, and then when I catch that size-me-up, read-me-through, look in your eyes, I make up my mind _I'm_ the infant--not you. Where did you and Peggy catch and bottle up all your worldly wisdom?"

"Didn't know _I_ had so much," laughed Polly, "but Peggy was born with hers, I reckon. If I have any it has been b.u.mped into my head partly by mother, partly by Aunt Janet, and the job finished by the boys Juno has been referring to. It doesn't do to try any nonsense with _that_ bunch; they see through you and call your bluff as quick as a flash. We were pretty good chums and I miss them more than I could ever miss a lot of girls, I believe. Certainly, more than I missed the Montgentian girls when I left them."

"Nothing like being entirely frank, I'm sure," was Juno's superior remark:

"That's another thing the boys taught us," replied Polly imperturbably.

Just then the bell rang for "rooms."

"There's Tattoo!" cried Polly. "If I get settled down at Taps tonight I'll be doing wonders. Miss Allen has bandaged up my arm as though Tzaritza had bitten half of it off. Come on, 'Ritza. Peggy, you'll have to get me out of my dudds tonight. Good-night, girls. Sorry we didn't get our fudge made. Maybe if I'd let Helen alone you would have had it,"

and with a merry laugh Polly ran from the room, all animosity forgotten.

"What did she mean by 'Tattoo' and 'Taps,'" asked Natalie of Peggy.

"The warning call sounded on the bugle for the midshipmen to go to their rooms, and the lights out call which follows. Have you never heard them? They are so pretty. Polly and I love them so, and you can't think how we miss them here. Polly always sounded them on her bugle at home.

You've no idea how sweetly she can do it," answered Peggy as she walked toward her room beside Natalie.

"Oh, I wish I _could_ hear them. I wonder if mother knows anything about them," cried Natalie enthusiastically. "Do you know, I think you and Polly are perfectly wonderful, you have so many original ideas. I am just crazy to know what mother wanted of you tonight. I'm going to ask her. Do you think she will tell me?"

"Why not? The only reason I did not tell was because I felt I had no right to. If Mrs. Vincent wants the others to know she will tell them, but you are different. I reckon mothers can't keep anything from their own daughters. At least Polly and her mother seem to share everything and I know Mrs. Harold is just like a mother to me."

The girls separated and Peggy and Polly were soon behind closed doors discussing Mrs. Vincent's private interview with the former.