am bound for the sea, Mary Anne!"

"Oh! Oh, thank you!" cried Peggy. "I wish I could, but I have to work
now, I'm afraid."

"Is this a time to think o' wark,
Wi' Scapegoat at the door?"

inquired Grace, looking up with her head on one side. "Why work at this
hour, Innocent? Even the slaves of virtue, even the Owls, are at play
now."

Peggy leaned out of the window; it really seemed as if her body would be
drawn out after her longing spirit, which had been out and away from the
first summons.

"Yes, the Owls!" she said. "That's just it, Miss Wolfe."

"No!" interrupted Grace. "Not Miss Wolfe! Not all AEsop! Impossible to be
wolf and goat at the same time, and do justice to either character. Let
it be Goat, or Grace, as you like."

"Grace, then, thank you! Well, you see, the Owls,--that is, Bertha asked
me to come to their room this evening, and of course I want to
dreadfully,--though not more dreadfully than I want to come out now,"
she added, wistfully. "And if I do, you see, I must get my rhetoric
done. It's awfully hard, and I am so stupid about it, it takes me for
ever. Oh, will you ask me again some time, please?"

The Scapegoat regarded her for a moment, standing with the ball in her
hand, swaying her light, graceful body to and fro.

"Another slave of virtue?" she said. "Can I permit this? Innocent, I
have half a mind to cause you to come down. I am to be thrown over for
owls, who have, if you will consider the matter, neither horns nor
hoofs? I am to let you stay and grind through the afternoon for them and
for my Puggy? Well--"

Her whole face seemed to lighten with whimsical determination. She laid
her hand on the fire-escape, and seemed on the point of mounting it,
when suddenly another change came over her. Her eyes darkened into their
usual melancholy look.

"Here's luck!" she said, abruptly. "See you later, Innocent!" She was
gone, and Peggy, with a revulsion of feeling, wished she had gone with
her. Bertha was a dear, and Miss Merryweather looked lovely, but neither
of them had the fascination of this strange girl, so unlike any one she
had ever seen in her life.

It was a forlorn afternoon; but Peggy stuck to her work manfully, and
had the satisfaction of closing the book at last with the feeling that
she was sure of it now, however things might be in the morning under
Miss Pugsley's hostile eye.

There was still a little time left before supper. She ran out to the
lawn,