The first thing that met her gaze was a large sign placed above a small table. Upon the table lay the array of booklets, while the sign read thus:
"A NOVELTY! POEMS BY PEARL PROCTOR.
A MEMBER of THE CONGREGATION.
Twenty-five Cents Each."
She did not have sufficient courage to walk boldly up with the air of a stranger and inspect the wares thus offered for sale, so she turned aside and began to talk to some of her friends, asking what she could do to help.
"My dear," said Elsie Pearson, flying up to her, and speaking in a whisper, "I am so glad you have come! I must tell you the greatest joke in the world. Somebody has sent a lot of poems to the fair to sell! Did you ever hear of anything so delicious? Mamma says we ought not to laugh, for the person who wrote them may be in the room, but it is too awfully funny not to laugh the least bit, and I know you are safe."
Millicent smiled stiffly. "Are they funny poems?" she asked. "You seem to find them amusing."
Elsie would have noticed her tone if she had not been so excited and in such haste.
"They are not meant to be," she said, aloud, as she moved away. "That is the best part of the whole thing."
Millicent, left alone, felt as if she could cry with pleasure. How perfectly outrageous it was in that odious Elsie Pearson to talk in such a way! The only comfort was that Elsie was anything but intellectual, and would not know good poetry when she saw it. She would probably fail to see any beauty in Tennyson.