Part III.
he next morning at ten o'clock two frightened and trembling maidens presented themselves at the door of Miss Briggs's house on Madison Avenue. It was all out of order, to be sure, for them to be calling at such an hour, for it was the time appointed for their lessons, and yesterday had been a holiday also on account of the fair; but Miss Briggs's word was to a certain extent law in the family, and governesses and masters were asked to defer their coming.
The mothers of Millicent and Peggy had little idea as to why their cousin wished to see them, for neither girl dared to confess her atrocious deed. In fact, Millicent herself did not know of Peggy's poem. Peggy was putting off the evil moment as long as possible, when she should be forced to give an account of what she had done.
She was really very much ashamed of herself. She had lain awake half the night thinking of what a rude, unladylike, childish trick she had been guilty.
"From first to last it has been silly," she groaned. "It was perfectly hateful of me to make Milly send her poetry and turn her into a laughing-stock, even though no one knows it was she who wrote them, and it was ridiculous for me to put that one in about Cousin Appolina. And it isn't very funny, either. I might have made a better one while I was about it. Oh dear! oh dear! I wish I hadn't been born a joker! I'll never get to England now, not for years and years, for papa declares he won't take me himself until I have finished school. And when he hears about this, for, of course, Cousin Appolina will tell the whole family, what will he say! Oh, oh! Unfortunate wretch that I am!"
Thus Peggy. Millicent, in the mean time, across the street, was in a no less unhappy frame of mind.
"What can it be?" said she to herself. "Cousin Appolina could not have found out then about the slippers, for she seemed to be in a very pleasant mood when she came to the poetry-table. What in the world made her buy all the poems? She must have come upon one that she liked, or one that she didn't like, that made her buy them all. Probably that she didn't like, but which one, I wonder?"
But as I have said, they rang Miss Briggs's door-bell, punctual to the moment. James, the melancholy footman, seemed even more solemn than usual as he ushered them up the stairs to the door of Miss Briggs's library.
"Miss Reid and Miss Margaret Reid," he announced, in a sepulchral voice, and withdrew, leaving them to their fate.