with a scornful toss of her head.

Poor Peggy! her tears flowed fast over the friendly handkerchief. "I
wish I was dead!" she sobbed. "I wish I had never come to this horrid,
odious place, where everybody is so hateful. And I can't hold up my arms
when I have to hold this to my nose all the time."

"Quite so!" said a quiet voice behind her. The sad-looking girl took her
hands and held them straight up in one of her own, the other keeping the
handkerchief in position. No word was spoken, but in five minutes the
bleeding was stopped.

"Basin--water!" said the stranger. "Don't mention it!" as Peggy tried to
falter her thanks. And she was gone.

Peggy waited till she felt sure of herself and her nose. Then she spoke
severely to herself, and asked what Uncle John would say to such
behaviour. "_Everybody_ isn't hateful!" she said. "And anyhow, there are
some things there that I can do, if I haven't learned this trick. I
won't give up till I've gone up that rope."

Her eye had been caught by a stout rope dangling from the ceiling. This
was in her own line, and she felt that if she could redeem herself in
her own eyes, she should not care so much about all those other laughing
eyes. And yet, perhaps she thought more about those eyes than she was
aware of, for our Peggy was very human.

This time fortune favoured her. As she emerged from the lower regions, a
girl was just trying to climb the rope; in fact, there were three ropes
hanging side by side, and the climbing of them was part of the regular
exercise. She sought Bertha, who was most sympathetic, not having been
near enough to help Peggy.

"Climb the rope? Oh, you'd better not try that, Peggy! it takes a lot of
practice. Why, I've been here two years, and I can't get to the top yet.
Really, it's very hard. Let's come and swing on the ring, if you are
quite sure about your poor nose."

But Peggy did not want to swing on the rings, nor to do anything else
that Bertha proposed; she wanted to climb that rope, and she meant to do
it; the prairie blood was roused.

"Well, I'll ask Miss Brent," said good-natured Bertha, finding her
determined. "You say you have had some experience in climbing? Perhaps
she'll let you go a little way up."

Miss Brent, interrogated, came and looked Peggy over carefully; felt her
muscles, asked her a few questions, and then said, "You may have the
next turn, Miss Montfort."

[Illustration: "UP THEY WENT, HAND OVER HAND."]

The girl on