Miss Briggs was in her drawing-room. The tea tray had just been placed before her, the celebrated cakes reposed in the old silver cake basket conveniently at hand, the man had left the room, when again the Misses Reid were announced.
Miss Briggs looked up and raised her lorgnette.
"You have made a mistake," she said. "I am not at home to Millicent."
"Yes, you are, Cousin Appolina!" cried Peggy, rushing forward and causing a bronze Hermes to totter as she brushed past it—"yes, you are more at home to Milly than you are to me. For she didn't write them, Cousin Appolina. She didn't write the lines about you. I have brought her with me to hear me confess. She is as innocent as—as that piece of statuary. I wrote the verses. I did!"
For a moment there was an alarming silence, but Peggy, having once begun her confession, courageously continued.
"I did it to frighten Milly. I put it in the box, but 'way underneath, for her to see when the poems came home. I thought it would be such fun to watch her when she read it, and found it had been to the fair with the others. Of course it was just my luck to have you find it, but, it was a silly, foolish thing to do, just as it was perfectly horrid of me to make Milly send her own verses to the fair. That was my fault, too. I urged her to do it just to get some fun out of it, and I didn't get a bit.
"Then this morning, when you thought Milly had written them all, and she didn't say anything, I thought I would let it pass, for I wanted dreadfully to go to England, and I knew that her chances were over on account of the slippers. Well, I was firm about it for an hour or so, and then I found how generous Milly was to say nothing, and she thought Joan had done it, and was going to scold her, and— Oh, well, I don't think it pays to deceive! I never was so unhappy in my life as I have been to-day. Milly, you dear old soul, say you forgive me!"
During this long speech Millicent had time to think the matter over. Her chief feeling was one of thankfulness that it was not Joanna who had done this thing. And Millicent had a sweet nature and never harbored anger very long.
Of course it was a dreadful thing for Peggy to have done, but her cousin knew how dearly she loved a joke, and though it had been wrong for her to deceive Miss Briggs and herself this morning, she had not kept it up long, and it was easy to see that she was sorry enough for it now.
So when Peggy asked her to forgive her, Millicent's answer was a warm kiss.