"I was just as sorry as you are for a time," she continued, "but you see it made them sing to me and I _can't_ be sorry about that, can I? Nobody could. It was so beautiful."
"I'm very sorry such a thing should have happened," the principal said solemnly when the recital was over. "The other young ladies are going to see a performance of the 'Blue Bird' this afternoon, and this prevents your going. I cannot permit you to go, of course, after this, much as I regret it."
Peggy turned away, a little twinge of disappointment in her heart. She had heard the girls discussing the matinée party for to-day, and she had never dreamed of not going with them. As she left the chapel Miss Carrol, the youngest teacher, timidly approached the principal.
"I am going to chaperone the girls to-day, am I not?" she asked.
"I thought I'd venture to suggest that Peggy Parsons be forgiven this once--I don't think she did anything so very terrible--and that she be allowed to come with us to the first party. Don't you remember when _you_ were away at school--how heartbreaking it was if you were shut out of anything, and how easily a fit of homesickness came on to blot out all the sunlight of the world? Don't you remember--Mrs. Forest?"
Mrs. Forest didn't remember at all. It wasn't just because all such experiences for her had been very long ago--many women remember all the more tenderly as they grow older,--but she had set out to be a good disciplinarian, and the girls she graduated from her school must be as nearly alike as possible, she wanted them all run in the same mold of training. But Miss Carrol's pleading voice and her eager eyes did what Mrs. Forest's own reminiscences could not do for her--they softened her attitude toward Peggy and finally she gave her consent for Peggy to go.
Peggy, flying back to her room, her heart full of disappointment, unaware of the change in her immediate fortunes brought about by Miss Carrol, heard her name mentioned by a group at the foot of the big staircase.
"This is really a very clever paper little Miss Parsons has written for my English class," one teacher was saying, tapping the folded sheet Peggy had labored over as the first of her work for Andrews.