ee something of
you, Miss Montfort. If you will come to my room some evening, I will
show you some pretty problems that are not in the text-books."

With this, the highest compliment she could pay a pupil, Miss Boyle went
on her way; and Peggy, after wandering through two or three deserted
class-rooms, and breaking in upon a senior committee-meeting of a highly
private nature, and walking into a pantry, found herself at last in the
gymnasium.

This was a lofty and spacious room, fitted with every possible appliance
for gymnastic exercises. Peggy's eyes brightened as she gazed about her,
at the rope-ladders, the parallel bars, the rings and vaulting-horses
and spring-boards. If this were not Paradise, Peggy did not know what
was, that was all.

Some of the girls were already arrayed in blouse and full trousers, and
were taking their place in ranks, under the eye of an alert, graceful
young woman in a pretty dark blue suit. Others were hurrying up from
some apartment on a lower floor, and from the stairway came a hum of
voices which showed that others were still making ready.

Bertha Haughton, in crimson blouse and black trousers, hurried up to
Peggy.

"Here you are!" she cried. "I have been trying to find you. Where are
your gym things? Haven't got any? Oh, how too bad!"

"I didn't know!" said poor Peggy. "It didn't say in the programme, did
it? Can't I do anything without them? Oh, dear."

Her face, so bright a moment before, clouded so instantly with
disappointment and mortification, that the experienced junior could
hardly repress a smile.

"My dear! my dear!" she cried. "Do wait till I tell you. You can wear
the Snowy's things. She hasn't come back yet, and you can wear them just
as well as not till she comes."

"The Snowy?" repeated Peggy. She remembered vaguely that she had heard
the name, but it meant nothing to her in her trouble.

"Yes, my chum, the Snowy Owl. I'm the Fluffy one, don't you remember?
The Snowy is a bit taller than you, but that is no matter; you can wear
them perfectly well, I tell you. Come along, and I'll get you into
them."

Peggy hung back, protesting faintly against appropriating the clothes of
a person she had never seen; but finally she yielded to Bertha's
vigorous pulls, and followed her down a winding stair, into a narrow
room filled with a hubbub of girls in every stage of dressing and
undressing. Viola Vincent fluttered up to her (it is difficult to
flutter in a gymnasiu