"Come in, Peggy!" said Miss Russell's cheerful voice. "Who is that with you? Oh, Viola? come in, my dear! Do you want anything?"

"No, Miss Russell," said Peggy. "I—I just wanted to come in, that was all."

"So did we!" said the Fluffy. "We just came, and we feel so much better. Sit down here, Peggy."

She patted the floor beside her, and Peggy and Viola sat down. Peggy heaved a sigh of relief. "I thought you would let us come," she said. "It's so dreadful not to be able to do anything, isn't it, Miss Russell? If we could help in any way, or feel that we were doing anything at all, it wouldn't be so bad. I came by the door just now, and Grace was singing, and it all sounded so quiet and peaceful. You think it is all going well, don't you, Miss Russell? You don't think she is worse to-day, do you, Miss Russell?"

Miss Russell put back Peggy's hair, which had fallen into her eyes as she looked up eagerly. "Dear," she said, "I was just telling Gertrude and Bertha how it is. Doctor Hendon thinks there will be a change to-day; he thinks the crisis is coming. It is a time of great danger, but he has good hope, and we must have it, too. And, girls, you are all longing to help; now, you can help us to-day. You can help very much indeed. The house must be kept absolutely quiet this afternoon. The girls are in their rooms now; but if you could get them off for a walk, some of them, and send the rest to the gymnasium, you would be doing us all a service. Miss Cortlandt is going to the gymnasium, and she will give them a drill, or let them dance, if they like—you don't think they feel like dancing? No more do I! I shall not leave Lobelia's room myself till the change comes; I am going back there now, as soon as the doctor comes. Ah! there he is now! Remember, dear girls, quiet; and for the rest, hope and patience—and trust!"

She kissed them each in turn, quietly and gravely, and was gone. Turning to Emily Cortlandt, they saw that her eyes were full of tears; yet she spoke cheerfully. "Miss Russell is so wise, girls!" she said. "I am sure you will do all you can—it is an anxious time. One thing she forgot to say,—I wouldn't let the other girls know, if you can help it, how grave the danger is. Some of them are nervous, and might have hysterics, or even be ill. Viola, my child, you look very pale. Don't you feel well?"

Viola was trembling all over. She came close to Miss Cortlandt and nestled up to her like a little child. "I'm afraid!" she said, simply. "I never was near where anybody died. I'm dreadfully afraid, Miss Cortlandt."

Very gently Emily Cortlandt spoke then to the frightened child, and to the other three girls, whose strong, sensible faces were grave enough, but who were able to possess themselves in courage and quiet. She told them some of her thoughts, the thoughts of a gentle Christian woman; of the hope and love and promise that made death seem to her only the white door that led into life, a life toward which we must all look, and for which we must shape ourselves as we pass through this world of joy and sorrow. She told them of young lives which had seemed cruelly cut off here; and of how it was her thought that death had been to them not the end, but the beginning; and of the lovely light they had shed behind them, of gentleness and hope and love. Then she spoke more brightly, and told them how strong, after all, life was in the young, and how one could always hope, while even a spark remained. Doctor Hendon had good hope, she repeated, and they must have it, too.

"And now," she said, "I must go, and you must go, too. Find the girls quietly, and bring them to me, or take them out for one of your good walks; and let us, whatever we do, do it cheerfully!"

Faithfully the Owls and Peggy laboured, that November afternoon. First they soothed and comforted Viola, finishing the good work that Miss Cortlandt had begun; and they induced her to go to the gymnasium and take a party with her. Then they went about softly from door to door through the corridors, not spreading any alarm, merely saying that Miss Russell thought they would all better go out, as the afternoon was so fine, and that they were to go quietly, as Lobelia might be asleep. Before long, without noise or confusion, the whole school was out, either in the gymnasium or on the road. The walkers divided into three parties, Peggy leading the freshmen, Gertrude the juniors, while Bertha marshalled the sophomores, who came like lambs, half proud, half shy, at being under the leadership of the renowned Fluffy. The seniors, of course, could be trusted to take care of themselves. They were a small class, and somehow—as happens in every school with one class and another—had never made themselves a power; they had gone now with the rest to the gymnasium.

Peggy, as she walked at the head of her troop, tried to feel her cousin Margaret's hand in hers. Always humble, and distrustful of her own powers, she tried hard to think what Margaret would do in her place. She would tell stories, probably, wonderful stories of heroes and great deeds. Ah! but Peggy did not know the stories in the books; they never stayed by her. Well, then, she must tell what she did know! She found herself talking about her home life, the home on the great Western ranch; of her father and brothers, and the many feats in their strong, active life. Here, if she had only known it, were stories better than any in Margaret's books. How Brother Jim hunted the white wolf for three days in the mountains; how Hugh set the trap for the young grizzly, and more wonderful, how he tamed him and made him his friend and servant; how Father Montfort saved the three men who were snowed up in Desolation Gulch, and brought them out one by one on his shoulders, just as their last biscuit was gone and they had sat down to die,—on and on went the tale, for it was a story without an end. On and on went the girls, too, unconscious of their going, forgetting to think they were tired, forgetting everything save the joy of listening. The shadows were lengthening fast when Peggy, still relating, turned her face homeward, wondering with thankfulness, as she noted the position of the sun, how she had been able to take them so far without once hearing a groan or a sigh of weariness. She looked around, and saw only sparkling eyes and rosy cheeks. "A month ago," she thought, "they would have said I had almost killed them. They really are hardening, and I'm so glad!"

"Oh, go on, Peggy!" cried Rose Barclay. "You are never going to stop there! What became of the one with the wooden leg? We must know!"

On went the story, and on went the girls; the sun sank lower and lower, the shadows crept longer and longer, the air grew cool and thin with the coming night. The man with the wooden leg had chopped it up for fuel, and Father Montfort had brought him and all the others in triumph to the ranch, and set them down by the fire, when— "Oh, dear me!" cried Ethel Fair. "What a shame, girls! Here we are at the gate. I say! let's go on a little farther, Peggy."

But Peggy was wise, and knew when to stop; besides, now that she was near the house again, the anxiety and distress that had been lulled by the walk and the story-telling, came back like a flood, and filled her heart. They were crossing the lawn; what tidings would greet them at the door? Some one was standing there now; Miss Cortlandt, was it? no, Miss Russell herself. She was waiting for them with the news; would it be good or bad? Peggy hung back for an instant; then she walked steadily forward. "Quiet, girls!" was all she said. "I think Miss Russell has something to tell us."

They were at the foot of the steps now; and Miss Russell was coming down to meet them, running, the grave and stately woman, to meet them, like a girl. Her hands were outstretched, her face was all aglow with joy, the glad tears ran down her cheeks.

"It is over!" she whispered. "Softly, my dear children. Come softly in. The crisis is over, and the child will live! Come with me, and let us thank God together!"



CHAPTER XVIII.

THE END AND THE BEGINNING.

It was a month later. The first snow had fallen, and the lawn was white with it, and all the trees and bushes powdered with frost. Coming out of the class-room one day, her heart singing of sines and cosines and tangents, Peggy found the Snowy and the Fluffy waiting for her at the door, with radiant faces.

"Oh, what?" cried Peggy. "A letter?"

"Yes," said Gertrude. "It has just come, though the postmark is two or three days ago. Where shall we go to read it? Your room, Peggy? So we will; it's nearer than the Nest, and I know you can't wait."

Grace's letters were indeed things to wait for in those days. She had gone to Lobelia's home with her; for, on coming to herself, the invalid had still clung to her new friend, with a persistency strange in one so timid and fearful. Convalescence came, with its unwilling fretfulness, its fits of unreason. Still Lobelia clung to Grace, and no one else could make her listen and obey. The nurse laughed, and said she might as well go, and leave her diploma with Miss Wolfe; yet stayed, for the two worked together in pleasant harmony and friendship. At last, Doctor Hendon ordered a change of scene, and now, too, Grace must go with her. The Parkins mansion was within driving distance of Pentland; the whole school had turned out to see the departure, the sick girl lying on cushions, her thin face already showing the signs of returning health, and really transfigured by the light of love and gratitude that beamed from it, as she looked from Grace to Peggy, and back again to Grace. She beckoned to Peggy, who pressed to her side and bent over her. "What is it, dear?" she whispered.

"Peggy!"

"Yes, Lobelia."

"Peggy, you don't mind?"

"Mind what? I don't mind anything, now that you are getting well."

"You—you were my first friend, the only friend I had. You don't mind—that I love her? I couldn't help it, Peggy. She kept me alive, you see. Often and often, when I was drifting away, and ready to die, she held me, and would not let me go. You are sure you don't mind, Peggy?"

Peggy kissed her heartily, and told her not to talk nonsense. "If you didn't love her," she said, "I'd have nothing to do with you, Lobelia Parkins. Do you hear that? Nothing! I wouldn't speak to you in the street, if I met you."

Lobelia smiled, and leaned back on the cushions with closed eyes and a look of absolute content. "You are so funny, Peggy!" she murmured. "She is funny, too. I like people who are funny. Good-bye, and thank everybody. Everybody is so kind!"

The carriage drove away, and the last thing the girls saw was Grace's face, looking down at her charge; grave as ever,—Grace rarely smiled, and they hardly knew the sound of her laugh,—but bright as Lobelia's own with love and purpose and gladness. So they passed out of sight.

And since then had come letters every week, telling of the child's progress; one to Miss Russell always, and one to the Owls or to Peggy. It was one of these that Gertrude took from her pocket now and opened, as they sat together on Peggy's divan.

"You see, it is dated three days ago; probably been carried in a pocket, from the look of it."

"DEAR SNOWY, ALSO FLUFFY:—Tu whit! She has been gaining so fast this week, we shall soon forget she has been ill at all. She can eat anything she likes, and she likes a great deal. Miss P. keeps exclaiming at her appetite. Apparently the child never ate anything before she went to school. The rule of the house is, or was, one shredded wheat Abomination for breakfast, one chop for dinner, one smoked herring for supper. All this served on huge and hideous silver dishes. This order is changed. Miss Parkins almost fainted when I ordered the first meal. She weeps every day over the butcher's book, but the child fattens apace, and all is well. I had to frighten her—the aunt—a little, though, before things went smoothly.

"Yesterday we explored the house, the Babe and I. The amazing thing is that she lived at all after she got her eyes open. Apparently every article cost a thousand dollars; most awful old mausoleum you can imagine; you never saw such a place, for there couldn't be two. The bed I sleep in has all-round curtains of apple-green plush, with bead fringe three inches deep. The mantelpiece and table-top and so on are gray marble, and the ornaments are two deformed gilt cherubs holding a slop-jar with a clock-face in the middle of it. Also two unspeakable alabaster jugs, three feet high, and two Parian busts under glass cases. They are supposed to be Luther and Melanchthon; I think they are Lucifer and Mammon. Well, the poor little thing is used to it, and doesn't know what is the matter. Wait till Monday week,—I mean till some future day,—and she shall know, but not now. She doesn't think it a homelike house, she says!

"I shall be coming back almost any time now, as soon as I can get away. It's dreadful to leave her,—'I'm wae to think upo' yon den, e'en for her sake,'—but I must get back before exams, and she is really all right, only not of course wholly strong yet. She will come back next term; and meanwhile she is to travel with an old servant who was her nurse, and who has some spark of humanity in her composition.

"I'm coming back, I tell you; at least, something is coming back. I don't say whether it will be the Goat or the Wolf, or what; I'm pretty sure that—

"'Lawk a mercy on me, This is none of I!'

"Good-bye, you feathered things! How do feathers feel? How do you get about? There are good points about the creature, I can see that; you can see in the dark—but so could the Wolf! and it would be nice to be able to ruffle up your feathers and put a tongue in every wound of Puggy's—but she is gone, isn't she? Alas! and if you don't know Shakespeare when I talk him, why, you are an ignorant set, and don't deserve your names. This is for the Innocent, too, mind! Give her my love, and tell her—never mind; I'll tell her myself.

"So no more at present, Respected Fowls, from your most obedient, humble servant,

"THE HYBRID."

The three girls were silent for a moment after Gertrude had folded the letter again. Then, "Do you suppose she will really be changed?" asked Peggy. "I—I don't think I want Grace to be changed, do you, girls?"

"That depends!" said Bertha, with her chin on her hands, in her favourite judicial attitude. "Of course it would be despair if we should lose her real, true self. If she could only stay Grace Wolfe, and change her point of view, why, then—"

"That is just what she will do, I feel sure of it," said Gertrude, earnestly. "She has been through an experience—oh, we can't know what it has been, girls, because we are just plain people, you know, and Grace is—well, I think she has genius, or something very like it. If only the power and the sweetness and brightness are turned into helping, you see, instead of hindering—oh, how much she can do! and I believe she's going to do it, too. But come, Fluffy, I must go home. Won't you come, Peggy? We have half an hour before study-time."

Peggy followed only too gladly along the corridor; it was always a treat to spend half an hour in the Owl's Nest. Gertrude was first; she opened the door of her room, and paused on the threshold with a low cry. Bertha and Peggy hurried forward and looked over her shoulder—to see a strange sight.

Something—or somebody—was sitting on the window-seat. Something gray and soft. It had a round feathered head, with two feathery horns jutting from it; it had round bright eyes, which blinked curiously at the astonished girls. Below the head were—arms, were they, or wings? They were feathery too, and they drooped over something that might be a skirt, though no feet were visible. In the gathering twilight the figure sat on the window-seat and blinked, looking like nothing that was in heaven or earth; and the three girls stood and stared, holding each other's hands. Presently the silence was broken.

"Bubo Virginianus!" said a grave, melodious voice from under the feathers. "The Great Horned Owl. Description: Large and strongly organised; ear-tufts large, erectile; bill strong, fully curved; wing rather long; third quill usually longest; tail short; legs and toes—"

"Grace!" cried Gertrude Merryweather.

"Tu whit!" replied the figure. "I may also in this connection remark, tu whoo! This well-known bird is a resident in all the New England schools—I should say States—throughout the year. It is not so common in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island as in the other States, where, in the vast tracts of forest, it is quite abundant. Samuels. Easy there! spare the Plumage!"

The three girls had flung themselves upon the strange figure, which flapped its arms for a moment, as if contemplating flight. Then, waving them off with one arm, it lifted the feathered head, and gazed at them with melancholy blue eyes.

"Tu whit!" repeated the Scapegoat. "I may be allowed, in this connection, to repeat, tu whoo! Don't kill me, Innocent; I should be less useful dead."

It did seem as if they would hug her to death. They laughed, they cried, they questioned, they talked, all in one breath; no one would have recognised the sedate Owls or the sensible Peggy. Grace regarded them with grave benignity, as she untied the owl's head, and loosed the feathered cape from her shoulders.

"Rather neat, I thought?" she said, turning the head around on her hand. "The beak is a little wobbly, but the general character—eh?—is pretty good? I couldn't manage the toes and claws; there wasn't time, and, besides, they would have excited remark, even if the weather had been warm enough to make them comfortable for travelling. Well, my Snowy, my Fluffy, how is it? Is there room for another Owl in the forest?"

"Oh, Grace!" cried Bertha.

"Oh, my dear!" cried Gertrude; and their arms were around her again, while Peggy sat down on the floor and fairly burst into tears.

Grace was silent for a little, her head resting on Gertrude's shoulder. When she spoke, her voice had not its usual even flow, but hesitated, almost faltered, now and then.

"I am going to try!" she said. "It will take a long time, my Owls, and you will have to be very patient with me. I shall probably never be wholly domesticated, but—but you will help me, and the Innocent here will help me; won't you, Innocent?"



"Oh, Grace, if I only could? but what can I do? I don't see how I can ever do anything!"

"You began it all!" said Grace. "The way you looked—that night I made you go out, little Peggy. You didn't know, but the face of an Innocent can be a terrible thing, and I saw, and knew—things I hadn't known before. No need of going back to that now. But—Snowy—Samuels says I make an amusing pet in captivity. You'll try me?"

"Won't we!" cried the Snowy Owl. "Grace, dear, we'll all try together. Oh, we all have to keep trying, don't we, all our lives long? It wouldn't be worth anything if we didn't have to try, to work and fight for it. It shall be we three against the world,—the Snowy, the Fluffy, and the Horny. No, we four, for what should we do without our Peggy? Get up, Peggy, you ridiculous child; stop crying, and come and sit here close by us."

"Oh!" cried Peggy. "Isn't there some kind of Owl that I could be? I am too stupid, of course, but I might be a screech-owl, don't you think so, Snowy?"

Grace held up her hand. "Forbid the thought!" she said, gravely. "Who would get us our mice? We must have a Human Being connected with us. I think of moving into Bedlam, as Colney has a fine assortment of mice on hand generally. I refuse bats, probably on account of the strong musky odour, but a mouse dragged across the floor of my cage fills me with excitement. Samuels, part of it at least. No, we must have a Human Being in the Owlery, and that Human Being must be the Innocent. We Four against the World, then! Hands on it, my Owls!"

The four girls stood up, and, joining hands, looked in each other's faces. "We Four against the World!" they repeated. "The Snowy, the Fluffy, the Horny, and the Innocent; Hurrah for us!" and the shout they raised brought the whole corridor running to see what was going on.

THE END.

* * * * *

Transcriber's Notes:

Obvious punctuation errors repaired.

Page 5, caption was missing from original. Added from the List of Illustrations.

Page 233, "all" changed to "a" (For a reply)

Page 301, "does't" changed to "doesn't" (and doesn't know that)