"Yes, you may go, and do not come to the house again until you at least appear to be more ashamed of your conduct. You are absolutely unrepentant, I see. Go! Margaret, my dear, I should be glad to have you stay and talk over our trip."
Millicent left the house feeling as if she were walking in a dream. What could it all mean? Of course it was Joan. What a strange thing for the child to do! And how cleverly she had hidden it!
When she was told of the transaction at the fair, of how Cousin Appolina had bought all the poems, she had only laughed and thought it a good joke, and was glad that Millicent's poetry was appreciated. And she went off to school that morning as light-heartedly as possible. Her last words had been:
"I hope you will get through all right with Cousin Appolina, Milly darling, and I hope she hasn't found out about the slippers, and that you will be the one to go to England."
And yet it must have been Joan, for Peggy would certainly have confessed had it been she.
Millicent walked slowly homeward. The French teacher was awaiting her, and her singing master was to come directly afterward, but her lessons did not receive very close attention that day.
In the mean time Peggy was left with her cousin.
"I am astonished at Millicent," said Miss Briggs, as the door closed. "I always suspected that she was silly, but I never supposed she could be impertinent. I shall not mention it in the family, Margaret, and I shall be obliged to you if you will not either. I would not for the world have either her father or yours know what—what she has said about me."
Still, Peggy was strangely silent. She was glad that it was not to be told. She had less compunction about not confessing if the family were not to know it. Now they would merely think it a whim of Cousin Appolina's that she was the one chosen for the voyage.
She did not enter with great heartiness into the plans for the summer, and Miss Briggs soon dismissed her.