“Of course, there are two pins!” he declared vehemently. “This one never belonged to Tip Kingstone. If you don’t get it away from her, Floyd Westwood, I will!” His flashing eyes emphasized his hot words, and he would have carried out his threat if it had not been for his brother’s authoritative advice to let things be as they had fallen until their father could be consulted.
This little episode came near upsetting the party, but Aunt Sally Calhoun was a diplomat of no mean degree, and under her tactful management things quickly regained their smooth course. Yet Polly went to sleep that night wishing with all her heart that she had never brought her precious pansy pin to New York.
The next morning, just as she was putting on her hat and coat to go to the station, a maid appeared at her door with a card. She read, engraved in small script, “Bertha Curtis Kingstone,” and she wondered with a joyful wonder why she had come to see her.
The girl that met her downstairs in the reception room seemed a very different Bertha from the one of the night before. She held out the pin.
“Mother says I have no right to this,” she began abruptly, “and I beg your pardon for keeping it.” The words were spoken in a low, monotonous voice, as if they were a lesson. “I am sorry I was so rude, and I trust you will excuse me.”
Polly was at once generous.
“Oh, it may be yours!” she responded. “I’m afraid I ought not to take it back.”
“Mercy!” the other broke out, “I guess you’ll have to! I’ve had scoldings enough over the old pin! I wouldn’t carry it home again for a bushel of ’em!”
“I am sorry you have been scolded,” sympathized Polly.