It was while they were eating lamb chops, which after an hour and a half in the warming oven might as well have been anything else, that some one thought to put the question Peggy had been dreading. "Do you know what present she stole?"
Peggy took a hasty sip of her iced tea and looked appealingly at her questioner. But her reluctant manner only aroused the curiosity of every one.
"I'll bet it was the silver teapot," exclaimed Dick.
"It doesn't matter what's missing, as long as Peggy herself is here safe and sound," declared Mrs. Raymond fervently.
"But what did she take?" insisted Alice, eyeing her sister with suspicion.
Again Peggy forfeited herself with iced tea, and her cheeks, flushed by heat and weariness, took on a deeper hue. "It—it really wasn't so valuable,—" stammered Peggy. "You know Elvira Bond gave me half a dozen teaspoons that she got by saving soap wrappers or something. They came in a neat little case, and I suppose the woman snatched the nearest thing without looking. I didn't chase her because the spoons were worth so much because—well, it was the principle of the thing."
There was a long moment of silence, and then a roar of laughter. They laughed long and helplessly and wiped their eyes and started all over again. As a rule Peggy could appreciate a joke, even if it was against herself, but on this occasion a rather wry smile was the best she could do. She was beginning to realize that she had been very silly.
"Well, Graham," remarked Mr. Raymond when he could make himself heard, "In my opinion you're assuming quite a responsibility in planning to take this young woman to South America."
Graham's eyes met Peggy's and something in his look arrested her attention, a peculiar radiance as if he had just heard a wonderful piece of news. But all he said was, "I'm ready to take the risk, sir."