Part 4 (2/2)
And Peggy held crushed in her free hand a tiny wad of paper, the tangible evidence that this first year promised success to her.
CHAPTER IV-NEW PAINT AND POETRY
A summons to visit an invitation house!
And on such a gratifying mission! Peggy smiled as she slipped into her rose-colored taffeta, and Katherine, watching her with pride, decided that ”the poet's look” had come back.
”Well, good luck, room-mate,” she called as Peggy went out the door, and she received one radiant glance in answer from the departing young bard.
The pleasantly warm tone of the rose-colored taffeta buoyed up the new genius' spirit all across the campus until she came out into Green Street and beheld the imposing reality of Macefield House directly before her.
She had the fleeting and sn.o.bbish wish that all the girls of her cla.s.s could see her turning thus a.s.suredly up the walk to the famous senior house. To be sure, she couldn't help casting a cold look of disapproval at the porch-it was the messiest porch she had seen anywhere in Hampton, but she supposed the celebrity inhabitants of Macefield were all too busy with their dinners and dances and social duties generally to notice how careless and extremely-impromptu-the approach to their home appeared.
The campus house porches all had chairs out on them and comfortable magazine tables-there were still a lot of hot fall days to look forward to-but on the Macefield House porch there was nothing. And somebody had carelessly left an old ladder lying down right in front of the steps!
Peggy had a very hard time scrambling over it. Perhaps it was just as well the other Freshman girls weren't there to see her after all. She must admit there was considerable loss of dignity involved in scrambling over an old paint-specked ladder that was so completely in her way.
Her face was flushed to the color of her dress when she finally climbed the steps. Even in her confusion she noticed that the porch floor looked strangely _new_ and that it seemed to have a tendency to cling a little and impede her footsteps.
”It's probably because I'm getting scared that I imagine my feet stick to the boards,” she mused uncomfortably. ”I don't know how a person should act at an invitation house. Whether you're supposed to walk right in or--”
That part of her problem was settled immediately, for she found the door locked. Gathering what self-confidence she could, she pressed the bell.
Uneasily she s.h.i.+fted from one to the other of the sticking feet. No one came. She knew it was rude to ring twice, but she felt she would never have the heart to come again if she didn't see the great editor of the Monthly now and get everything arranged. So she pressed a shaking finger nervously against the bell, and held it so until she heard a rustling inside the house. The door opened-just a crack-and a surprised head poked itself into view. Peggy had a jumbled and confused impression all at once. She was aware of the speechless amazement in the eyes, also that the face was not that of a girl at all, but belonged to a rather severe looking and decidedly middle-aged woman.
With a little jump of her heart she realized that she was meeting the gaze of the matron of Macefield House. Campus house matrons were regarded in the light either of common enemies or motherly souls, whose hearts responded to all college-girls' troubles. But what might the matron of an invitation house be like? Peggy thought she must be something incomparably greater.
”Is Miss Armandale in?” she asked weakly.
”She may be, but she'd be up in her room,” answered the head ungraciously enough, while its owner apparently did not intend to admit the enemy within the fortifications, since no move was made to open the door wider.
”Well--” murmured Peggy, with a sudden realization that she was standing in wet paint,-”shall I-go up-and-and find out?”
”By the back door if you wish,” said the head witheringly. ”If you came in this way, you'd _Track in the Paint_.”
Peggy's heart leaped. A crimson tide went over her. She shut her eyes before the accusing and indignant gaze of the matron.
So that was what the ladder had been for, and any stupid but she would have known! With dread she looked back along the porch the way she had come and there, sure enough, was a procession of marring footprints in the new grey of the flooring!
She had climbed with great difficulty over the barrier that had been deliberately placed there to prevent such a thing.
And Ditto and the other girls of the house would have to have the porch all done over on account of a silly freshman. For the girls in the invitation houses carried their own expenses, leasing their houses and then conducting them like any tenants.
”I will go 'round the back way, then,” she gasped to the glowering matron. Her one thought was to escape the baneful glare of those eyes.
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