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.
Peggy had watched this conference from across the room; and she now came quickly over to her cousin. "Look out, Mill," she said in a low tone, "you will have to be awfully careful that no one catches on. If I were you I wouldn"t stay so near the poetry table."
Peggy, already deeply regretting her joke, wished to spare her cousin as much as possible. But her good intentions were frustrated by Mrs.
Pearson.
"Millicent," said that lady, "we have had some new wares sent in; something I never saw before at a fair. Poems, my dear. Just think of it; and by a member of the congregation! We can"t imagine who wrote them, and of course they are perfect trash" (this in a low voice), "but we will have to do our best to sell them, so I want you to take charge of that table. You won"t mind changing, I know. And try not to let the people laugh at the poems. They are absurd, I know, judging from one I picked up. It was about a moth or an ant or something. I am not sure that it was not a Croton bug," and with a laugh at her own wit Mrs.
Pearson led Millicent to the poetry table, and established her behind it.
It was now twelve o"clock, the hour at which the fair was to be opened to the public.
Two or three hours later the sale was in full swing. A great many people came, for it was in every respect a fashionable function, and it was considered quite the thing to be seen there. People bought largely also of every variety of article--except poetry. That seemed to go a-begging.
There was always a crowd about the table, but no one felt inclined to purchase. The little booklets were picked up, read, dropped again, with laughter and comments, until Millicent felt that she would gladly sink through the floor.
Even her own mother came, criticised, and moved on, with a whispered question to Millicent as to what member of the congregation could have been so conceited and so senseless as to do such a thing as this.
Millicent"s head ached, and tears filled her eyes, and she thought the climax had been reached when Elsie Pearson, picking one up at random, said, laughingly:
"Just listen to this, Milly! It is the gem of the whole collection. I can"t help it if the "member of the congregation" does see me. She deserves to be made fun of." And Elsie in a whisper read the following:
"TO THE MARCH WIND.
"Loud and shrill, loud and shrill, List to the wild March wind!
And the heart of the mariner trembles As he sails his rudder behind.
"My dear, the "member" is a little mixed! Does she mean the mariner sails behind the rudder, or the rudder sails behind the mariner? Did you _ever_, Millicent? I don"t believe she knows which part of a ship the rudder is. And this is the second verse:
"And the bell on the bleak beach bellows.
"(There"s alliteration for you. Fancy a bell bellowing!)
"And the fog-horn lifts its voice, And the mariner goes to an early grave, He has no other choice.
"Oh, Milly! isn"t it funny? Why don"t you laugh?"
"I am laughing," said Millicent, in a hoa.r.s.e voice; "it makes me perfectly hysterical," and she hid her face for a moment in her handkerchief. Fortunately Elsie was at that moment called away.
Millicent found to her cost, as the afternoon wore on, that the climax had not been even then.
Joanna had come late to the fair, detained by school and luncheon until four o"clock. She had found no one at home, not even her mother, but she had heard from the maid a piece of news which caused her heart to bound with excitement and consternation.
Cousin Appolina had returned very unexpectedly from Washington!
Joanna decided that she must tell Millicent as soon as she reached the fair, so that the slippers might be removed at once. It would be better to be on the safe side, although it was extremely improbable that Cousin Appolina would visit the fair the first day of her return.
But just as Joanna came out of the front door Miss Briggs herself drove up in her carriage, and learning that no one was at home in either of her relatives" houses, but that all had gone to the fair, concluded to betake herself there also, and forthwith invited Joanna to get in and drive with her to Sherry"s.
Joanna, nothing loth, accepted the invitation, feeling rather glad on the whole that her cousin had returned in time, for she would be sure to spend her money freely, and Joan was greatly interested in the success of the sale. And, alas! she forgot all about the worsted slippers!
They presented their tickets, and entered the room just as Millicent had buried her face in her handkerchief upon hearing the remarks of Elsie Pearson. When she emerged therefrom the first thing that met her astonished gaze was the tall and never-to-be-forgotten form of Cousin Appolina Briggs, and her heart sank with apprehension. For a moment the works of her unappreciated genius were forgotten. Her one thought was "slippers!"
"Oh, that I had never sent those horrible slippers!" she said to herself despairingly. "It will be just my luck to have her see them, and would serve me right, too, for having given away a present. Yes, she is going that way! Oh, if I could only make Peggy or Joan come here! They could go and buy the slippers before she gets there."
But Peggy and Joan were not forth-coming. The latter, full of business, had lost no time in retiring behind the screen which formed the "fish-pond," and was already baiting the hook with ardor, and queerly shaped packages, and Peggy had not yet seen her cousin, and supposed her to be safe at Washington.
But Miss Briggs was not one to remain long unnoticed. She was of commanding height and n.o.ble breadth. When she entered a room the rest of humanity seemed to grow smaller by comparison. Her voice was deep and had a penetrating quality which caused it to be heard at the unusual distance, and the gold lorgnette, without which she was never seen, and which she was in the habit of raising constantly to her short-sighted and somewhat prominent eyes, flashed and glittered in the light.
Truly Miss Appolina"s was a presence calculated to make itself felt. And Peggy felt it, and she heard the voice, and a tremor that seemed like fear filled her naturally courageous heart. She looked at Cousin Appolina, and she looked at the poetry table. There was yet time.
Leaving abruptly a customer who was on the verge of making an important purchase, who only needed a word of advice from Miss Peggy Reid as to which was the prettier, a centre-piece embroidered in yellow, or a table-cloth done in greens, she flew to the side of Millicent.
"The poems!" she gasped. "Have any of them sold?"
"Not one," said Millicent, "but oh, Peggy; there is Cousin Appolina!"
"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. .h.i.ther 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.
Now she stood by the table as if turned into stone, and awaited the approach of an avenging fate. The day of practical jokes was over for her.
She knew, she felt absolutely confident, that just as surely as Cousin Appolina had chosen the slippers of her own make, just so surely would she pounce upon the poem that Peggy had written about her.
Miss Briggs drew near.
"Well, girls!" she said, in her great deep voice, the gold lorgnette raised to her eyes--"well, girls, you did not expect to see me back so soon, did you? Washington became insupportable. Too many odious-looking people. I could not endure it. What have we here?" staring at the sign, ""Poems by Pearl Proctor, a member of the congregation"? And who may she be? Proctor--Proctor? I don"t remember the name in New York. Proctor is a Boston name. Who is it, Millicent?"
Millicent trembled.