A Flock of Girls and Boys Part 7

Agnes flushed resentfully as she came forward and saw the confidential friendliness of the little group. For "that girl" she had been neglected and disregarded like this! Not a moment longer would she bear such insults. It was all nonsense,--all that stuff about being prosecuted for showing up facts. She would be stopped by that foolishness no longer. She would first take her stand boldly, and let everybody know what a fraud this Miss Smith was. These were some of the wild thoughts that leaped up out of the bitter fountain in Agnes's distorted mind at that instant, and her voice was sharper than ever as she again said,--

"I want my property,--the paper I gave you to keep for me."

Will had risen to his feet, and answered very coolly, "I can't give it to you."

"What do you mean? Have you lost it?"

"No, but I can't give it to you."

"Have you read it?"

"Yes, and that's the reason I don't give it to you. I know if I should you would--"

"Probably give it to Miss Smithson," cried Agnes, shrilly. "Miss Smithson," going toward Peggy, "I--"

"Oh, Peggy, Peggy, come with me. We're all your friends,--grandmother and I and Will and Tom; and we know how sweet and innocent you are. Oh, Peggy, come, come, and don't listen to her!" burst forth Tilly, in an agony of pity and horror, as she put an arm around Peggy to draw her away.

But Peggy was not to be drawn away.

"What in the world is the matter? What is it all about? What do you mean, Tilly, dear, by 'innocent'? What has she," glancing at Agnes disdainfully "been getting up against me?"

"Oh, Peggy, Peggy, don't!" moaned Tilly.

"Well, this is rich," laughed Agnes, jeeringly. "n.o.body has been getting up anything against you, Miss Smithson."

"What do you mean by calling me Miss Smithson? That isn't my name."

"Oh, isn't it?" derisively. "How long since did you change it for Smith?"

"I have never changed it for Smith."

"Oh, I believe that 'Miss Smith' is down on the hotel register, and you answer to that name."

CHAPTER VI.

"I beg your pardon," said Peggy, looking at Agnes with great scorn.

"'Mrs. Smith and niece' are down on the register. It was the clerk who registered us in that way, and all of you seemed to take it for granted that _my_ name must be Smith also. Perhaps I ought to have corrected the mistake at once; but after I overheard that conversation on the piazza, and--saw somebody examining the register a few minutes later" glancing away from Agnes with a smile at Will, who looked rather sheepish--"after that I thought I'd let the mistake go until the rest of the family arrived, it was so amusing."

"Oh," retorted Agnes, "this all sounds very straight and pretty, but I dare say you've got used to telling such stories. Perhaps you'll tell us now what name you do call your own, and if it is by that those South American friends you write to are known."

"Perhaps Mr. Tom Raymond will tell you," answered Peggy, quickly. "I've thought for some time that he might be one of the Tennis Club that came out to Fairview at my brother's invitation last summer, and I thought he suspected who I was, and--and wouldn't tell because--because he saw, just as I did, what fun the mistake was. But now, if he will, he can introduce me--to my friends, Tilly and Will Wentworth, as--"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Miss Pelham! Miss Margaret Pelham!"]

"Miss Pelham! Miss Margaret Pelham!" shouted Tom, before Peggy could go any further.

"Pelham!" cried Tilly, in a dazed way.

"Pelham!" repeated Will.

"Yes, Pelham! Pelham!" exclaimed Tom, exultantly, flinging up his cap with a chuckle of delighted laughter.

"And you're not--you're not the daughter of that dreadful Smithson?"

burst forth Tilly, in a little transport of happy relief.

"'That dreadful Smithson'? Who is he, and who said I was his daughter?"

"_She_ said it," roared Will, darting a furious look at Agnes; "and she cooked it all up out of this," suddenly pulling the paper from his pocket.

"Give it to me!" cried Agnes, breathlessly, springing forward to s.n.a.t.c.h the paper from his hand.

"No, no, you wanted me to give it to Miss Smith a minute ago, and now I'll give it to--Miss Pelham, and let her see what you've wanted to circulate about the house," answered Will.

"I--I--if I happened to notice it before the rest of you--and--and thought that it might be this Miss Smith--"

"That it _must_ be! you insisted," broke in Will.

"With all that about the change of name, and the age of the girl, and--and--the 'South America' I saw on the blotting-pad, and the South American dress," went on Agnes, incoherently,--"if I happened to be before you, you thought afterward, I know you did, that it might be; and--"

"With a difference, with a difference!" suddenly rang out Peggy Pelham's clear young voice in tones of indignation. She had read the newspaper slip; and there she stood, scorn and indignation in her face as well as in her voice. "Yes, with a difference," she went on vehemently. "If they thought it might be, after you had paraded the thing before them, you,"

with a renewed look of scorn, "thought it _must_ be, because you wanted it to be, because you had got to hating me. Oh, I can see it all now,--everything, everything; how you patched things together, even to that blotting-pad which I had used after directing my letter to my uncle, Berkeley Pelham, who lives in Brazil. Oh, to think of such prying and peering," with a shudder, "and to think of such enmity, anyway, all for nothing! I've heard of such enmity, but I never believed in it, for I never met it before. And all this time there was Tilly Morris,--oh, Tilly," whirling rapidly about, "what a dear, brave, generous, faithful little thing you've been," the ringing voice faltering, "for in spite of--even this--this dreadful Smithson, you stuck to me and tried to s.h.i.+eld me."

"Oh, I knew, and so did grandmother, that you were innocent, whatever might just possibly have happened to--to--"

"Mr. Smithson--" And Peggy began to laugh. But the laugh ended in something like a sob, and she hurriedly hid her face on Tilly's shoulder. When an instant after she looked up, it was to see that Agnes had disappeared.

"Yes, the enemy has fled," said Tom Raymond. "The minute you dropped your eyes she was off. We might have stopped her, Will and I, but there wasn't much left of her. Oh, oh, oh! isn't she finished off beautifully, though?" and Tom gave way at last to the hilarity he had so long manfully repressed.

"Finished off! I should say so!" cried Will, joining in Tom's laughter.

"And to think that you were a Pelham,--one of Agnes's wonderful Pelhams all the time," put in Tilly, still with an air of bewilderment.

"And am now," laughed Peggy. "Oh, Tilly, you are such a dear!"

"One of Agnes's wonderful Pelhams!" shouted Tom. "Guess she won't be in a hurry to set up a claim to 'em now!" and Tom burst out again in wild chuckles of hilarity.

"And I never saw her, and I don't believe she ever met one of us before," cried Peggy.

"She told Amy that she didn't know the Pelhams yet, but that her Aunt Ann did, and her aunt was coming next month and would introduce her to them when they arrived," said Tilly, with a demure smile.

"Well, she'll probably like my sister Isabel's Skye terrier, with its fine name of Prince, much better than she does my poor little plebeian doggie, with its vulgar name of Pete," remarked Peggy, her eyes twinkling with fun.

"Oh, Peggy, to think of your hearing all that talk about the dog and everything."