oklets--"I know! That's just it!"

"But the slippers, Peggy! Go and get them. I don't dare."

"The slippers! They are nothing to the poetry. Oh, where is it?"

And she tossed the poems hither and thither, looking first into one,
then into another.

"Oh, where is it?"

"What do you mean, Peggy? Don't waste time over the poetry. Do please go
and buy those slippers! Give any price. There, she is getting to that
table now! It is too late!"

There was a lull in the noise at that moment, and Miss Briggs's clear
deep tones could be distinctly heard by the two culprits.

"I want a pair of knit slippers. I make a great many myself, but I never
seem to have any for my own use. How much are these red and gray ones? A
dollar and a half? Give them to me, please, and never mind about the
change. I have not examined them thoroughly, but if they do not suit me
I will give them away."

It was too late. She had bought her own slippers. Millicent hoped that
the gold lorgnette would be smashed to atoms before the lady reached her
home; that her spectacles would lose themselves; even that the world
would come to an end before Miss Appolina found an opportunity to
examine those red and gray worsted slippers. That she would recognize
them Millicent felt no doubt, for they were knit in a fashion peculiar
to herself, the two colors forming a little plaid.

Meanwhile Peggy had tossed about the poems with no result. She had only
succeeded in bringing to the top those that had hitherto lain in safe
insignificance at the bottom.

Now she stood by the table as if turned into stone, and awaited the
approach of an avenging fate. The day of practical jokes was over for
her.

She knew, she felt absolutely confident, that just as surely as Cousin
Appolina had chosen the slippers of her own make, just so surely would
she pounce upon the poem that Peggy had written about her.

Miss Briggs drew near.

"Well, girls!" she said, in her great deep voice, the gold lorgnette
raised to her eyes--"well, girls, you did not expect to see me back so
soon, did you? Washington became insupportable. Too many odious-looking
people. I could not endure it. What have we here?" staring at the sign,
"'Poems by Pearl Proctor, a member of the congregation'? And who may she
be? Proctor--Proctor? I don't remember the name in New York. Proctor is
a Boston name. Who is it, Millicent?"

Millicent trembled.

"I--I--" she faltered.

"You!" thundered her cousin. "Ne