oan."

Peggy said nothing for a long time. Then she asked, "What time does Joan
get home to-day?"

"Not until late, for she is going to lunch with one of the girls, and
then to the Dog Show with her."

"Well, I must go home. I'll see you again before the day is over." And
Peggy departed to her own house. "What a good girl Millicent is," she
thought. "I have laughed at her and made endless fun of her for her
poetry-making, I have thought she was stupid over her lessons, and not
half as bright or as much to be admired as myself, and here she is ten
times more generous, ten times more honorable, ten times better than I
am in every way. I am a wretch, a conceited, deceitful, mean, stuck-up,
and everything else that is horrible wretch. But I don't want to give up
and tell Cousin Appolina that I did it."

At twenty minutes of five that afternoon Peggy again appeared in
Millicent's room. An odor of smoke filled the air, and Milly seemed to
be wrestling with the tongs and some burning paper at the fireplace.

"What are you doing?" asked Peggy, much surprised. "Building a fire this
warm day?"

"I--I--am burning my--my poetry," replied Millicent, struggling with her
tears as well as with the tones. "I am never going to write another
line. Every one laughed so that I don't believe there is much real
poetry in it, and I am never, never going to write again. What a horrid
smell that m-morocco c-cover makes!"

Peggy would have laughed had she been in a happier frame of mind. As it
was, she said, solemnly: "Open the window and leave the room to air off,
Mill. I want you to come out with me. I am going to Cousin Appolina's."

"But I can't go there, Peggy. You know she told me not to come again."

"You must, Milly. You really must. I will be responsible for it. I can't
go alone. You _must_ go with me."

Finally Millicent put on her hat, and for the second time that day the
two set forth for their cousin's house.

Miss Briggs was in her drawing-room. The tea tray had just been placed
before her, the celebrated cakes reposed in the old silver cake basket
conveniently at hand, the man had left the room, when again the Misses
Reid were announced.

Miss Briggs looked up and raised her lorgnette.

"You have made a mistake," she said. "I am not at home to Millicent."

"Yes, you are, Cousin Appolina!" cried Peggy, rushing forward and
causing a bronze Hermes to totter as she brushed past it--"yes, you are
more at home to Milly t