Agnes; "and she
cooked it all up out of this," suddenly pulling the paper from his
pocket.

"Give it to me!" cried Agnes, breathlessly, springing forward to snatch
the paper from his hand.

"No, no, you wanted me to give it to Miss Smith a minute ago, and now
I'll give it to--Miss Pelham, and let her see what you've wanted to
circulate about the house," answered Will.

"I--I--if I happened to notice it before the rest of you--and--and
thought that it might be this Miss Smith--"

"That it _must_ be! you insisted," broke in Will.

"With all that about the change of name, and the age of the girl,
and--and--the 'South America' I saw on the blotting-pad, and the South
American dress," went on Agnes, incoherently,--"if I happened to be
before you, you thought afterward, I know you did, that it might be;
and--"

"With a difference, with a difference!" suddenly rang out Peggy Pelham's
clear young voice in tones of indignation. She had read the newspaper
slip; and there she stood, scorn and indignation in her face as well as
in her voice. "Yes, with a difference," she went on vehemently. "If they
thought it might be, after you had paraded the thing before them, you,"
with a renewed look of scorn, "thought it _must_ be, because you wanted
it to be, because you had got to hating me. Oh, I can see it all
now,--everything, everything; how you patched things together, even to
that blotting-pad which I had used after directing my letter to my
uncle, Berkeley Pelham, who lives in Brazil. Oh, to think of such prying
and peering," with a shudder, "and to think of such enmity, anyway, all
for nothing! I've heard of such enmity, but I never believed in it, for
I never met it before. And all this time there was Tilly Morris,--oh,
Tilly," whirling rapidly about, "what a dear, brave, generous, faithful
little thing you've been," the ringing voice faltering, "for in spite
of--even this--this dreadful Smithson, you stuck to me and tried to
shield me."

"Oh, I knew, and so did grandmother, that you were innocent, whatever
might just possibly have happened to--to--"

"Mr. Smithson--" And Peggy began to laugh. But the laugh ended in
something like a sob, and she hurriedly hid her face on Tilly's
shoulder. When an instant after she looked up, it was to see that Agnes
had disappeared.

"Yes, the enemy has fled," said Tom Raymond. "The minute you dropped
your eyes she was off. We might have stopped her, Will and I, but there
wasn't much