And she poured out an indignant account of the cruelty she had witnessed and put a stop to. The stranger's eyes were stern enough, as she listened. "I heard only the end of it," she said, briefly, "but where I see Blanche Haight, I am never surprised at anything cruel or cowardly.

I am very glad to know you; it was a mercy that you happened to come along just then. I hope we shall be friends, Miss--is it Miss Montfort?"

"Oh, that I will!" cried Peggy, responding with all her warm heart to the sweet smile and the lovely look in the clear blue eyes. "Oh, I should like to ever so much; but I don't know your name, do I?"

The stranger smiled again. "They call me the Snowy Owl," she said, "but my name is Gertrude Merryweather."

CHAPTER VI.

THE OWL'S NEST.

When Peggy escorted Lobelia Parkins back to her room, she found that it was the one directly above her own. Point for point, the rooms were alike, fire-escape and all,--so far as the actual outlines were concerned; there, however, the likeness ended. There had been no Uncle John, no Margaret, in this case. The room was furnished, evidently, by the same hand that had dressed the girl, and with equal taste. The carpet on the floor was costly, but hideous as staring colours and execrable design could make it. The furniture was c.u.mbrous, and the fact that the ugly chairs were rosewood, and their cushions brocade, made them neither beautiful nor comfortable. On the bureau were some bottles of red Bohemian gla.s.s, such as were thought handsome fifty years ago; an elephant of a writing-desk, staring with plush and gilding, almost covered the table. Altogether, the room was as desolate as its occupant; more could not be said. Lobelia seemed smaller and more shrunken than ever amid all this tasteless display; she seemed conscious of it, too, as she gazed piteously at Peggy. She had been crying, in a furtive, frightened way; and, gazing at her, Peggy felt that it must be years ago that she was crying, too, and hoping for nothing in the world save to get to her room and have a good solid deluge of tears. At present it seemed hardly likely that she should ever weep again; she felt strong and confident, and was still burning with indignation, none the less hotly that the outward flame had gone down. Her kind companion had been obliged to leave them, with the promise of seeing them soon again. Peggy thought she might stay a few minutes, though the gong for gym had already rung.

"Now, Lobelia," she was saying,--"I am going to call you Lobelia, you know, and you are to call me Peggy, and we are going to be friends.

Now, Lobelia, mind what I say! if those girls ever give you any more trouble, you are to come straight to me. Do you hear?"

"Yes," said Lobelia, faintly.

"Have they tormented you before? Beasts! Or was this the first time?"

"Oh, not--not so much!" said the girl, deprecatingly. "A little yesterday; but--I don't know whether they meant to be unkind, Peggy. I know that my dress _is_ queer!"

"Don't be so meek!" cried Peggy, unable to repress a little stamp of her foot, which made Lobelia start. "Have some spirit of your own, Lobelia.

I tell you, these girls are mean, cowardly wretches, not fit for girls like the Owls to speak to. They don't speak to them much, either," she added, "and I'm not going to any more than I can help."

Lobelia looked more miserable than ever. "Don't!" she said. "I can't bear to have any one get into trouble on my account. It--it needn't matter to you, Peggy. Of course you are very, very kind, and I think I should have died if you had not come along just then, for I couldn't seem to bear much more; but I don't want you to get into trouble."

"Who's going to get into trouble?" demanded Peggy. "Guess I can take care of myself against such a set as that."

"I don't want you to get into trouble!" repeated Lobelia; and, as she spoke, she glanced around the room with a peculiar shrinking look, one would say a look of dread, that Peggy did not understand.

"Who's next door to you?" she asked, briefly. "Rose Barclay, for one, I know. Who is on the other side?"

Lobelia thought it was another freshman, but was not sure.

"Have they troubled you?" asked Peggy, suspiciously.

But Lobelia shook her head, and seemed so distressed at the question that Peggy did not know what to think.

"Please, please don't bother about me!" she implored. "I dare say it will be a good deal better now, after you and Miss Merryweather being so brave and so kind. I don't want to say anything against anybody.

Please, please forget all about it, Peggy."

"I want you to be brave yourself," cried Peggy; and Lobelia started again, and shrank in her chair. "Don't be so--so--well, I don't know any word but meeching, and Margaret won't let me say that. But have a spirit of your own, and stand up to them, and give 'em as good as they send. I would, I tell you, quick enough, if they tried it on me."

Lobelia looked at her with hopeless eyes. "But I am not you!" she said.

"I--Peggy, I know just how I look, and how I seem, and how little and ugly and queer I am. I don't wonder they laugh, I don't, really. I haven't any spirit, either; I can't have. You can't do anything with me; it isn't any use."

Peggy gazed at her, with eyes almost as hopeless as her own. Yet she must make one more attempt; and with it the honest blood came into her face.

"Look here, Lobelia!" she said, "I am awkward, too, and shy, and--and stupid, awfully stupid. Why, my cousin Rita used to call me--never mind, that was only before she grew so kind! But I know what it is to be laughed at, my dear! Only this morning, in rhetoric, Miss Pugsley was just as hateful as she could be, and all the girls laughed; yes, they did. So you are not so different as you think. Why,--I don't mind telling you,--when I came along just now, I was trying to get to my own room, so that I could have a good cry. There, Lobelia! now how do you feel?" Lobelia raised her eyes with a wondering look; but next moment her eyes fell on the looking-gla.s.s and she shook her head.

"No!" she said. "No, Peggy! You are kind, and you want to make me feel comfortable; but look!"

She motioned toward the mirror. Peggy looked, and her kind heart sank.

She herself was no beauty; her round, fair face and honest blue eyes were pleasant to look at, and she had beautiful hair, but that was all; yet she could not help seeing that she was a very vision of loveliness beside the sallow, puny, almost deformed aspect of her poor little neighbour. She coloured deep with angry sympathy, but Lobelia only smiled, a wan little smile.

"You see!" she said. "It's no use, Peggy."

For all answer, Peggy threw her arms around the shrinking figure, and pressed it in a warm embrace. "I don't care!" she cried. "I don't say you are pretty, you poor little thing, but just remember that you are my friend, and if anybody dares to meddle with you again, they'll have to reckon with me, that's all. And now I must go, or I shall lose all the drill. Cheer up, Lobelia, and don't sit here and mope, mind! and if you have any more trouble, just knock on the floor, and I'll be up in half a quarter of a jiffy. Good-bye, dear!" and off she ran, feeling that at least she had left some degree of comfort and cheer behind her.

Soon, however, came something that put Lobelia Parkins and her troubles out of Peggy's head for the time. Bertha Haughton was not at the gymnasium, but when Peggy came back to her own room after an hour of rapture, she found a note pinned on her pincushion.

"DEAR PEGGY:--Study _hard_, please, and get through before this evening. The Snowy Owl is going to give us a Grand Tell about the wedding she has been to, and we both want you to come, too. I'm going to speak to Miss Russell, but you'd better ask her, too; it will be all right, for the Snowy has asked permission, anyhow. Eight o'clock, just after reading; be sure to come on time!

"Affectionately, "BERTHA."

It was hard to study through that lovely afternoon, when the other girls, or most of them, were out-of-doors, playing tennis or basket-ball, and their voices came in at the window in every tone of joyousness and delight. It was very hard to study the detested rhetoric and history, but Peggy was strong in her good resolve, and bent steadily over her books, trying her very best. Once, indeed, came a sore temptation, when a ball struck her window lightly, and, going to look out, she saw Grace Wolfe standing below.

"Come out, Innocent!" said the Scapegoat, in her deep, musical tones.

"Come and sport with me!

"The ship is ready and the wind blows fair, And I am bound for the sea, Mary Anne!"

"Oh! Oh, thank you!" cried Peggy. "I wish I could, but I have to work now, I'm afraid."

"Is this a time to think o' wark, Wi' Scapegoat at the door?"

inquired Grace, looking up with her head on one side. "Why work at this hour, Innocent? Even the slaves of virtue, even the Owls, are at play now."

Peggy leaned out of the window; it really seemed as if her body would be drawn out after her longing spirit, which had been out and away from the first summons.

"Yes, the Owls!" she said. "That's just it, Miss Wolfe."

"No!" interrupted Grace. "Not Miss Wolfe! Not all aesop! Impossible to be wolf and goat at the same time, and do justice to either character. Let it be Goat, or Grace, as you like."

"Grace, then, thank you! Well, you see, the Owls,--that is, Bertha asked me to come to their room this evening, and of course I want to dreadfully,--though not more dreadfully than I want to come out now,"

she added, wistfully. "And if I do, you see, I must get my rhetoric done. It's awfully hard, and I am so stupid about it, it takes me for ever. Oh, will you ask me again some time, please?"

The Scapegoat regarded her for a moment, standing with the ball in her hand, swaying her light, graceful body to and fro.

"Another slave of virtue?" she said. "Can I permit this? Innocent, I have half a mind to cause you to come down. I am to be thrown over for owls, who have, if you will consider the matter, neither horns nor hoofs? I am to let you stay and grind through the afternoon for them and for my Puggy? Well--"

Her whole face seemed to lighten with whimsical determination. She laid her hand on the fire-escape, and seemed on the point of mounting it, when suddenly another change came over her. Her eyes darkened into their usual melancholy look.

"Here's luck!" she said, abruptly. "See you later, Innocent!" She was gone, and Peggy, with a revulsion of feeling, wished she had gone with her. Bertha was a dear, and Miss Merryweather looked lovely, but neither of them had the fascination of this strange girl, so unlike any one she had ever seen in her life.