Peggy said nothing for a long time. Then she asked, "What time does Joan get home to-day?"
"Not until late, for she is going to lunch with one of the girls, and then to the Dog Show with her."
"Well, I must go home. I'll see you again before the day is over." And Peggy departed to her own house. "What a good girl Millicent is," she thought. "I have laughed at her and made endless fun of her for her poetry-making, I have thought she was stupid over her lessons, and not half as bright or as much to be admired as myself, and here she is ten times more generous, ten times more honorable, ten times better than I am in every way. I am a wretch, a conceited, deceitful, mean, stuck-up, and everything else that is horrible wretch. But I don't want to give up and tell Cousin Appolina that I did it."
At twenty minutes of five that afternoon Peggy again appeared in Millicent's room. An odor of smoke filled the air, and Milly seemed to be wrestling with the tongs and some burning paper at the fireplace.
"What are you doing?" asked Peggy, much surprised. "Building a fire this warm day?"
"I—I—am burning my—my poetry," replied Millicent, struggling with her tears as well as with the tones. "I am never going to write another line. Every one laughed so that I don't believe there is much real poetry in it, and I am never, never going to write again. What a horrid smell that m-morocco c-cover makes!"
Peggy would have laughed had she been in a happier frame of mind. As it was, she said, solemnly: "Open the window and leave the room to air off, Mill. I want you to come out with me. I am going to Cousin Appolina's."
"But I can't go there, Peggy. You know she told me not to come again."
"You must, Milly. You really must. I will be responsible for it. I can't go alone. You must go with me."
Finally Millicent put on her hat, and for the second time that day the two set forth for their cousin's house.