"Oh, it's nice to be alive, and to be young, and to be away at school," she murmured, disregarding Katherine's observation. "And, just think, to-morrow we have a perfectly good new day to wake up into."
"To think that one of my young ladies--one of MY young ladies," the principal repeated impressively, "should have been guilty of such a misdemeanor--"
"What's a misdemeanor?" Peggy whispered in her room-mate's ear as they sat in chapel and listened to an address that was evidently going to be serious for somebody.
"Means _us_?" demanded Peggy incredulously. "Why, I never did any misdemeanors in my life."
"As to throw--or hurl--or drop a flower-pot down to the pavement from a window in my school," the cold voice continued.
"O--oh," murmured Peggy, "I thought maybe she'd seen me yawn."
"Now I am going to put my young ladies upon their honor to tell me which one of you showed so little regard for me and for the school as to conduct herself in this manner." The principal lifted her chin in a deliberate way she had, "and as you pass out from chapel I request the young lady who has this particular thing on her conscience to come forward and tell me that it was she who did it."
The lines of marching girls swung down the aisles, and Peggy rose with them. "I haven't it on my conscience," she told Katherine, "but I suppose I ought to tell her."
"I will go with you," offered Katherine generously. "It was just as much my fault, and I'd have done it if you hadn't."
But Peggy shook her head and threaded her way up the aisle to the principal's desk.
"Good-morning, Miss Parsons," the principal said pleasantly, for she had taken an especial fancy to Peggy the day before when she had been left at the school by her aunt. And looking down into that gleeful little face this morning, shining as it was with all the joy of living, and the irresponsible happiness that comes only with a free conscience, how could she dream of connecting Peggy's approach with the confession she had requested from the girl who had dropped the rose tree.
"Good-morning," said Peggy, her face crumpling into its funny little smile, "I didn't mean to."
"What? Didn't mean to--child, are you telling me--?"
There was certainly nothing of the hangdog about Peggy.