"Is not Millicent capable of speaking for herself?" inquired Miss Briggs, severely. "Since when did she lose the power of speech?"
The girls shook in their shoes, and held their peace.
"What are these things?" continued this terrible person, picking up the poems disdainfully, and again putting her lorgnette to her eyes: "'Ode to a Firefly,' 'Sonnet on the Caterpiller,' 'Some Lines to a Beggar Child.' Faugh! Who is the fool that is guilty of all this? But—but—what have we here?"
It had come, then! For this is what Miss Appolina read, but not aloud:
"Who is a dame of high degree?
Who's always scolded little me?
Who is a sight strange for to see?
Miss Appolina B.
"Who cannot with her friends agree?
Who loves to feed on cakes and tea?
Who prides herself on her pedigree?
Miss Appolina B.
"Who'll soon set sail across the sea?
Who will not take her cousins three?
Who is an ancient, awful she?
Miss Appolina B."
Miss Briggs looked from one to the other of the girls. The hum of the fair went on.
"I will buy all of these poems," she said in a voice which filled their souls with terror; "count them, and tell me the amount. And I wish to see you both to-morrow morning at ten o'clock."
Wondering, Millicent obeyed.
Peggy turned and fled.