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—"

Miss Pelham! Miss Margaret Pelham!
"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 snatch 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 shield 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."

"And everything? I should say so!" cried Will, starting up and looking rather red as he recalled his own words.

"Yes, and everything,—all about the dogs and the difference between the Wentworths and the Pelhams," took up Peggy, dimpling with smiles.

"Oh, I say now," began Will.

"Yes, you may say now just what you did then. I liked it,—I liked it. It was sensible and plucky of you, and it was such fun. Oh, when I think that but for auntie and me coming on ahead of the rest, and without a maid, and the hotel clerk writing only 'Mrs. Smith and niece' in the register, I should never have had all these wonderful experiences, and never have known what a friend my Tilly could be,—when I think of all this, I want to dance a jig, just such a jig as they are playing this minute;" and up she jumped, this smiling Peggy, and, catching Tilly in her arms, went waltzing down the path with her toward the hall from whence floated the gay strains of the "Lancers."

But what was that sound,—that long-drawn, jubilant sound that suddenly rang over and above the dance music?

"Ta-ra, ta-ra, ta-ra-a-a-a," rang the clear, piercing notes; and out from halls and offices and parlors came a little flock of folk to see that most interesting of arrivals at a summer resort,—a coaching-party. "Ta-ra, ta-ra, ta-ra-a-a-a," wound the coach horn; and up the carriage drive rattled a superb vehicle, drawn by four superb gray horses. The long summer daylight yet lingered, and showed the faces of the party atop of the coach.

"It's the Pelham team, and that's young Berk Pelham holding the reins," said a bystander.

Dora and Amy Robson, who had run out with the others from the dancing-hall, caught Tom Raymond as he was passing them; and Dora whispered,—

"Are they the Pelhams,—Agnes's Pelhams?"

"'Agnes's Pelhams'? Oh, oh!" gurgled Tom, nearly choking with suppressed laughter. Then, "Yes, yes, Agnes's Pelhams; but where is Agnes? She ought to be here to welcome her Pelhams."

"She's gone to bed with a headache or something. She came in looking dreadfully a few minutes ago."

"I should think she might; she had had a blow."

"What do you mean? But, look, look! those Pelhams are speaking to that Smith girl."

"No, they're not."

"But they are, Tom; don't you see?"

"No, I don't see any of them speaking to a Smith girl, but I do see Miss Pelham speaking to—Miss Peggy Pelham."

Dora tossed her head impatiently. "What a silly joke!" she thought; but—but—what was it that that tall young lady who had just jumped down from her top seat on the coach was saying?

"The minute I read your letter, Peggy, telling me of this little dance, Berk and I planned to drive over with the Apsleys and waltz a little waltz with you. Twenty miles in an hour and a half. Isn't that fine time? And you are looking so much better, Peggy, for the salt air, and away from all our racket. Mamma was wise when she sent you on ahead with auntie, but we're all coming to join you next week."

"Tom, Tom, you were not joking?" gasped Dora.

"When I said that girl was Peggy Pelham? Joking? No, it's a solid fact,—so solid it's knocked Agnes flat. Oh!" and Tom began to shake again; "it's too rich, it's too rich. Come over here away from the crowd, you and Amy, and let me tell you the whole story, and then you'll see what a blow Agnes has had."

Never had a narrator a more excitingly interesting story to tell, and never did narrator enjoy the telling more than Tom on this occasion; but though his hearers hung upon his words, these words were full of bitterness to them; and when at the close he flung his head back and said, "Isn't it the greatest fun?" Dora, out of her shame and mortification, cried,—

"Yes, fun to you,—to you and Will and Tilly, because you are on the right side of the fun; but I—we—are disgraced of course with Agnes. Oh, we've been just horrid—horrid, and such fools!"

"Well, I—I sort of forgot about you, that's a fact, in Agnes,—for it's her circus from the start; you and Amy," giving his little chuckling laugh, "are only humble followers, pressed into service, you know, by the ringmaster. The thing of it was, you hadn't sand enough to stand up against Agnes."

"And Tilly had," responded Dora, in a mortified tone.

"Oh, Tilly! Tilly's a trump, always and every time. She's on the right side of things naturally."

If Dora and Amy needed a still lower abyss of humiliation, they found it in this last sentence of Tom's, which showed them plainly what poor creatures he thought they were "naturally" to Tilly.

Before many hours the story of "that little Smith girl" was known throughout the house, and mothers and fathers and guardians heard with amazement that so serious a little drama had been going on without their slightest knowledge until this climax. One mother, however, Mrs. Robson, was more than amazed when she found what an influence Agnes had exerted over her daughter and niece.

"Don't offer as excuse that you didn't dare to tell me how things were going on for fear of offending Agnes Brendon," she said indignantly. "Didn't Tilly Morris dare to tell her grandmother?"

Everywhere it was Tilly Morris,—Tilly Morris, the kind, the brave, the honest! Even Mrs. Brendon, who came at last to know the fact, in her alarm and irritation assailed her daughter one day in the presence of the Robsons with these words,—

"Why couldn't you have behaved amiably and sensibly, like the little Morris girl? I don't see where you learned such suspicious, calculating, worldly ways of judging people and things?"

And then it was that Agnes turned upon her mother and gave utterance to these bitter, brutal truths,—

"I've learned them from the older people I've seen all my life,—the people who come to our house. They judge other people that they don't know anything about in just such calculating ways. They are always talking with you about this one or that one's social position, and they never make new acquaintances without finding out what set they belong to; and I was never allowed from a little girl to make acquaintances with any children whose mothers were not in the right set; and amiability and goodness had nothing to do with it,—nothing, nothing, nothing!" ZymTVttcR3LjJihyeLJaBr8Vxd3Rzy0c5w7ZRcGtpoCY3q+Zy8+3xpWrocqkNCpe

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