Page:Arthur Stringer-The Loom of Destiny.djvu/56

The Loom of Destiny as light a heart as usual. And Peggy, too, was not the old Peggy. A most wonderful change had taken place. The holes in her stockings were all carefully mended, and Susette, Peggy's French maid, had been commanded to lay out an entire clean dress for her, a command unique in the régime of Susette.

The second day that Ali Baba came there was a still more mysterious change in Peggy. She carried her hands awkwardly. When Ali Baba kissed her there was a tingle in the touch—the first her childish lips had ever felt. She wore her hated new boots that squeaked, and Susette had been made to sew an extension on her meagre petticoat. For the first time in her life she had felt ashamed of her legs. Her hair was slicked down with water, and she was silent and ill at ease.

She did not try to climb up Ali Baba that day as if he were an apple-tree, and when he called her Peggy she told him with great gravity that Peggy was a baby's name, and that she wished he would call her Marjorie.

That day Peggy's mamma saw her walking sedately down the stairs, without so much 44