"I know," returned Peggy, breathlessly, as she turned over the booklets—"I know! That's just it!"
"But the slippers, Peggy! Go and get them. I don't dare."
"The slippers! They are nothing to the poetry. Oh, where is it?"
And she tossed the poems hither and thither, looking first into one, then into another.
"Oh, where is it?"
"What do you mean, Peggy? Don't waste time over the poetry. Do please go and buy those slippers! Give any price. There, she is getting to that table now! It is too late!"
There was a lull in the noise at that moment, and Miss Briggs's clear deep tones could be distinctly heard by the two culprits.
"I want a pair of knit slippers. I make a great many myself, but I never seem to have any for my own use. How much are these red and gray ones? A dollar and a half? Give them to me, please, and never mind about the change. I have not examined them thoroughly, but if they do not suit me I will give them away."
It was too late. She had bought her own slippers. Millicent hoped that the gold lorgnette would be smashed to atoms before the lady reached her home; that her spectacles would lose themselves; even that the world would come to an end before Miss Appolina found an opportunity to examine those red and gray worsted slippers. That she would recognize them Millicent felt no doubt, for they were knit in a fashion peculiar to herself, the two colors forming a little plaid.
Meanwhile Peggy had tossed about the poems with no result. She had only succeeded in bringing to the top those that had hitherto lain in safe insignificance at the bottom.