illiant idea!" exclaimed the incorrigible Peggy.
"Have them printed on separate slips of paper, and sign some queer name,
and say a member of the congregation wrote them, and see how they take."

"I don't care to have you make any more fun of me and my writings," said
Millicent, with great dignity.

"No fun, honor bright! Only I wish you would put in one about Cousin
Appolina Briggs. If you don't, I believe I will. You could lend me your
rhyming dictionary to do it with, and I believe I could write a poem as
well as--anybody. But haven't you got anything on hand that you don't
want, in the way of fancy-work, that you might send?"

"I have those worsted slippers Cousin Appolina gave me for Christmas.
They are in the box, just as she sent them."

"The very thing! Who wants her old worsted slippers? And fairs are
always full of them. And you will have your poems printed and send them,
won't you, dear child?"

Her cousin did not see the gleam of mischief which came into Peggy's
eyes as she said this. Millicent was pondering the situation too deeply.
Peggy had never dreamed until now that she would take the proposition
seriously.

"I believe I will," said the poetess, after some minutes' pause,
interrupted only by the admiring Joanna, who urged her sister to act
upon Peggy's suggestion. "It would give me the recognition I want. They
can be sold at five cents a copy, and if I see people buying I shall
know that they are liked, and then some day I might have some published
in a book. Thank you ever so much, Peggy, for thinking of it. I will
sign them 'Pearl Proctor,' just as I do those that I send to the
magazines, and no one will ever know who it is. I will have them
type-written on attractive paper. And I will send Cousin Appolina's
shoes. She won't be home from Washington until after the fair, and she
will never know. They had really better be doing some good."

"She wouldn't recognize them, anyhow; she is so near-sighted that even
that gold lorgnette wouldn't discover her own stitches. Well, good-by,
girls. I'm going."

Unknown to her cousins, Peggy slipped away with the rhyming dictionary
under her arm. She had discovered it on the table, and the opportunity
was too good to be wasted.

She crossed the street to her own home and retired to her own room, from
which she did not emerge for an hour or more. At dinner that night her
family, had they looked at her with attention, might have discovered an
additional ex