quoted Margaret. "How comfortable you look, girls! May I do my hair here, too? I knew you would be sitting up, chattering. Who is the very dearest girl in the world except one, Peggy? And who is the one? I heard the end of your sentence before I knocked."

"Yes, but you didn't hear the beginning," said Peggy, "or you would know that you two here are the _very_ dearest, and that the others only come after you. I was speaking of Gertrude Merryweather; oh! how you and she will love each other, Margaret! I don't see how I can wait to have you know each other. And by the 'except one,' I meant Grace Wolfe, our h.o.r.n.y Owl, and our Goat, and a good many other things."

"Where is she now?" asked Margaret. "Have you heard from her lately?"

"No," said Peggy, sadly. "None of us have heard at school. She wrote Miss Russell some time ago that she was going to try a new departure, and expected either to go mad or make her fortune; but she didn't say what it was. She never writes many letters, you know. We have all written again and again, but it makes no difference. Hark! what is that noise?"

"What noise? I heard nothing," said Margaret.

"I thought I heard some one speak, outside the window."

They listened for a moment, but all was quiet.

"It may have been Uncle John and Hugh in the garden," said Margaret. "It is early yet, you know, not ten o'clock; they often walk about for an hour and more after we come up. Speaking of Grace Wolfe, Peggy,--"

"Tu-whit!" said a voice. "In this connection only, I may be permitted to remark, tu-whoo!"

"_Grace!_" cried Peggy, in such a voice that the other girls sprang to their feet. Peggy was at the window before them, s.n.a.t.c.hing back the curtain. The night was warm, and the upper sash had been lowered completely. Leaning over the sash was a slender figure shimmering white in the moonlight. "Any admittance for the Goat?" said a deep, melodious voice. "Peace, Innocent!" for Peggy was trying to drag her in over the sash by main force.

"I address the mistress of the dwelling. Is there admittance for a miscellaneous quadruped, Margaret Montfort?"

But now Margaret had her other hand, and laughing and crying, the girls had her in, and again Peggy displayed the powerful development of her muscles in a strangling embrace, from which Grace emerged panting, but unruffled. Giving Peggy a sedate kiss, she turned to Margaret, who still held her hand, gazing in wonder and bewilderment; for this was Mrs.

Peyton's companion.

"You pardon the informality?" she said; and her smile was like light in the room. "I could not come to call on Peggy, or on Peggy's Margaret, with my bonnet on. And it is a _great_ wall to climb!" she added, wistfully. "I don't know when I have enjoyed myself so; there is little climbing in these sad days. Now you see why I did not want to be Miss Fox."

"Oh, my dear!" cried Margaret. "How could you keep me in the dark? How stupid--how utterly stupid of me, not to know you! And yet, how could I have guessed that Mrs. Peyton's companion was Peggy's own beloved Grace?

You must be my Grace, too, please; I will have neither wolves nor foxes, but only Grace, or the Horned Owl."

She kissed Grace, who returned the kiss warmly. But now Peggy, who had been silent for a moment in sheer amazement, broke in:

"What does this all mean?" she cried. "Have you dropped from the moon, Grace Wolfe, or where do you come from? You and Margaret have met before? Where, and how, and when? I must know all about it, this very instant."

The situation was soon explained. Jean, who had hung back, shy and frightened, was brought forward and introduced; and soon all four girls were seated comfortably on the floor, talking as if nothing astonishing had happened. Only every few minutes Peggy would put her hand out and touch Grace's shoulder, as if to make sure that she was genuine flesh and blood, and not some phantom conjured up out of the moonlight.

"I have tried twice to see you," Margaret said. "Both times I seemed to have come just at the wrong moment. Do tell me how you are getting on, Grace! How has Mrs. Peyton been since you have been there? It is very seldom that I am so many days without seeing her."

"Singular lady!" said Grace. "Beautiful, but singular. She thinks me mad, so matters are equal. Why, we get on--somewhere! I am not sure where. At present, I am in disgrace. She did not like her chocolate this morning, and being in a pet, bade me throw it out of window; I obeyed.

It appears the cup was valuable, which was a pity, as its bones are scattered far and wide."

"You threw the cup, too? Grace!"

"Naturally I threw the cup. I am going on the principle of doing exactly what she tells me to do; thus she may discover the unreason of her conduct. Tu-whit! Yesterday she was displeased with an embroidered muslin jacket, and said she never wanted to see it again. I tore it up; she was displeased. To-night she took a dislike to my dress, and told me not to come near her till morning. Behold me here; I think it probable that at this moment she is raising the house for me and desiring greatly to be rubbed. These things are instructive to her. I have put her to sleep every night by rubbing, and now she will not sleep. Poor lady; so sad for her!"

All this was said quietly, pensively, with an air of mild consideration.

Margaret looked at her, wondering. No one had ever crossed Mrs. Peyton before. One "companion" after another had been engaged, been tyrannized over for a few weeks, and then dismissed. What would be the effect of this opposite treatment? Timid herself, she had always met the vagaries of her beautiful friend with, at most, a gentle protest. If matters were too bad, she stayed away for a week, and was sure to find the lady in her most winning mood at the end of that time; but she had never attempted any more severe measure than this.

"Do you think--do you feel as if you were getting hold of her at all, Grace?" she asked. "She is really very fascinating, when she wants to be."

"I am not fascinated!" said Grace; and for a moment the half-whimsical, half-reckless look, which was her usual expression, gave way to one that was stern enough. "Mrs. Peyton appears to me to be a wholly selfish person; a thing rarely met with in such entirety. I have promised my Good Physician that I will try to rouse her, and see if there is any sc.r.a.p of woman left inside this pretty sh.e.l.l; I am going to do my best.

I think it doubtful if there is, but I am going to do my best."

Peggy gazed at her with adoring eyes and felt absolute a.s.surance that Mrs. Peyton would shortly be converted into an angel. Did not Grace always do what she undertook to do?

With one of her sudden movements, Grace turned to her, and put her hands on her shoulders. "Behold my Innocent happy!" she said. "What of the other Owls, Babe? Do they hoot happily, and flap friskily?"

"Oh, Grace, they want to hear from you so much! The Snowy is really anxious. She is afraid you are sick, or--or something. Do write to her, dear; won't you?"

"The Snowy," said Grace, "is one of the few wholly satisfactory persons in the world. I have an immense respect for the Snowy, as well as a strong affection. If I could write to anybody, I think it would be to her. It may even be done, Innocent. Who knows?"

"She was afraid--" Peggy hesitated.

"She was afraid," said Grace, coolly, "that I was going on the variety stage. Yes; but you see, I did not. But I admit there are grounds--yes, I will write, Innocent. And now I must go," she added, rising. "I may come again, Margaret? Tie a white ribbon on the window-ta.s.sel when you do not want me. Good night!"

"Oh, but, my dear, you are not going out in that way!" cried Margaret, in distress. "Why not go down-stairs and out of the door, like a Christian?"

"There is nothing distinctively unchristian, I hold, in going by way of the window," replied Grace, her hand already on the sash. "Consider, I pray you, the rapture of the one method, the futile stupidity of the other. Enough! I am gone."

She slipped lightly over the sill and was gone, leaving the others staring at each other. Peggy ran to the window and looked after her.

"She is all right, Margaret!" she cried; for Margaret was visibly distressed and alarmed. "The woodbine is very thick and strong, and there is the spout, too. There! She is down now, all safe. Good night!

oh, good night, dear Goat!"

About this time, Hugh Montfort, having said good night to his uncle and the two Merryweathers, sauntered down the garden walk, for one more turn, one more look at the night. It was a wonderful night. The moon was full, and Fernley lay bathed in a flood of silver light, that seemed to transform the old brown house into a fairy palace, stately and splendid.

There was no wind, and no sound broke the stillness; yes, it might well be an enchanted palace, where every living thing lay fast bound by some mighty spell. The leaves drooped motionless from the branches; beyond the dark ma.s.ses of trees, the broad lawns lay in green and silver.

"It's more like something Greek!" said Hugh. "Tempe, or some such place.

If a dryad, now, were to come out from that great tulip-tree--good heavens!"

He stopped short, in the deep shadow of a clump of chestnut-trees.

Something moved, behind the very tree he was looking at. A figure came lightly out into the open; a woman's figure, slight and supple, clad in shadowy white. A dryad? No! the girl he had seen in the summer-house. He knew the face, as it shone upturned in the moonlight; knew the firm mouth and chin, the blue eyes, the look of careless power; seen once only, it was as if he had known the face all his life.

What was she doing? A smile lighted her grave eyes suddenly. She extended her arms, her face still raised to the moon. Her whole figure, light as thistle-down, began to sway, to drift hither and thither over the silver-green lawn. Dancing, was she? It was no human dance, surely; the name was too common for this marvel of motion. A wave cresting and curling toward its break; a cloud blown lightly along a summer sky by a gentle wind; a field of grain, bending and rippling under the same wind.

Hugh thought of all these things, and rejected each in turn, as unworthy of comparison to this, the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He watched her, as if in a dream of delight; each moment it seemed that he must wake, and find the lovely vision gone. It was too rare, too perfect to be real. It seemed as if all the moonlight in the world were drawn to this one spot, to shine on that white figure, dancing, swaying, hither and thither--

Ah! it was over. She stopped; threw, it seemed, some words upward toward the moon, accompanying them with a wave of her hand. Then she turned away, and pa.s.sed slowly out of sight, under the dark trees. As she went, she began to sing; softly at first, a mere breath of sound; but as she pa.s.sed farther and farther on, her song rang out clear and sweet; the voice and the song that he had heard the night before, in the field beyond the wall:

"Trois anges sont venus ce soir, M'apportaient de bien belles choses!"

CHAPTER IX.

ABOUT NOTHING IN PARTICULAR

"Jerusalem!" said Philip Merryweather.

"And Madagascar!" responded his twin brother. "Well, what did I tell you, old Towser?"