Part 9 (1/2)

”'But I was afraid as well as glad: afraid that maybe I wouldn't know how to do everything just as I should and that I might in some way disappoint the girls who were mentally carrying me about on their shoulders. In case you ever feel that way, little First Lady-and this is the reason for my note being written-I want you to know that you'll be very welcome to come to the veteran-and get the advice or bolstering up she may be able to give you as a result of having learned from her own mistakes.

”'Remember the juniors are just in college to be big sisters to the freshmen, and I hope you will come and claim the relations.h.i.+p the first free minute you have.

”'Love and congratulations, ”'_Mary Marvington_.'”

”Oh,” said Peggy, clasping her knees, ”isn't that a lovely one?”

”Well, it's hard to realize that you are one of the great ones, now, Morning Glory,” sighed Katherine whimsically, ”so that even ex-presidents will be flattered when you go to see them. And the condescension is all yours! Because a brand new freshman president is more in the college public eye than an 'old' junior who used to be once what you are now.”

”Great ones,” Gloria was repeating to herself.

”Do you suppose I really am?” she asked artlessly.

”Yes, you are,” Katherine said. ”A few hours ago you weren't half as much as Peggy-and didn't have the outlook she had, but now--”

Peggy and Gloria simultaneously clapped their hands over Katherine's mouth, and in her quick movement Gloria's ma.s.s of folded notes scattered over the floor like a sudden storm of Luther Burbank snow-flakes.

When they had gathered these together again and had helped Gloria sort out the most interesting-looking ones to read first, they each kissed her and went home, leaving her well absorbed in her overwhelming correspondence before they were even out of sight.

There was a reception in honor of the officers that evening in the Students' building. The freshmen were tired from their strenuous day, but they looked charming, nevertheless, in their soft silks and batistes as they drifted down the walk to the scene of festivities.

”There's Peggy Parsons!” a cry went up as soon as the pair from Suite 22, Ambler House, entered the building.

Peggy was immediately surrounded and borne off toward the receiving line, down which she was marched with nearly all the Andrews crowd and ever so many others in her wake. It did her heart good to hear every Andrews girl telling Gloria Hazeltine that each had voted for her from the beginning-and they believed it, the happy enthusiasts, Peggy could see that.

Then Peggy was swept on by the mob and was soon in the middle of a seethe of dancers, all girls, fox-trotting, one-stepping, waltzing and b.u.mping into each other in brilliant lavender, pink, blue and white confusion. How many dances she danced, nor what they were, she never could remember afterwards. For as soon as one girl left her another carried her off; juniors, seniors, soph.o.m.ores and freshmen, she couldn't tell which. But every one knew her name and hailed her as Peggy as if they had known her all their lives.

”I never knew anything so funny,” she said, when she was limping home later, with Katherine in the moonlight. ”It was just all a kaleidoscope.

I feel a good deal like a moving-picture that has been run too fast.”

”I think you were the director of the picture,” smiled Katherine, glancing affectionately at her dishevelled room-mate. ”You wrote the scenario for the election, and directed it, even if you did have to be in the picture yourself.”

”Katherine, you've got an awfully horrid room-mate,” mused Peggy in answer to this eulogy.

”I've got Peggy Parsons,” Katherine refuted.

”Well, she's the one I mean,” Peggy laughed.

”You'd be ashamed of her if you knew. Katherine, what do you think I almost wished when we were taking all those notes over to Gloria?”

”It wouldn't be so strange if you'd realized they might all have been for you,” Katherine defended her. ”They might, you know. It was just your crazy generosity that gave them up and deprived me of rooming with a freshman president. Did you really wish you were president? I hope you _did_, because if you didn't you're more than human and I don't like such people.”

”There!” cried Peggy, abruptly stopping in her homeward limp, and throwing her arms around her room-mate's neck, ”I'm not half so ashamed of it now that it's been dragged out into the light of day-the light of moon, I mean. It's funny how much better it makes a person feel to confess something mean and be sympathized with for it.”

”Anyway,” said Katherine, as their tired feet climbed the steps of their house, ”you were the _dea ex machina_, Peggy Parsons.”