Peggy Parsons a Hampton Freshman Part 25

"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 s.h.i.+vered 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 b.u.t.ton 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 wors.h.i.+ppers 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 k.n.o.b, 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 cus.h.i.+ons, 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," a.s.sented Gloria abstractedly, and slipped into them.

With their b.u.t.ton 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 k.n.o.b, 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.