large sign placed above a small table. Upon the table lay the array of booklets, while the sign read thus:

"A NOVELTY! POEMS BY PEARL PROCTOR.

A MEMBER of THE CONGREGATION.

Twenty-five Cents Each."

She did not have sufficient courage to walk boldly up with the air of a stranger and inspect the wares thus offered for sale, so she turned aside and began to talk to some of her friends, asking what she could do to help.

"My dear," said Elsie Pearson, flying up to her, and speaking in a whisper, "I am so glad you have come! I must tell you the greatest joke in the world. Somebody has sent a lot of poems to the fair to sell! Did you ever hear of anything so delicious? Mamma says we ought not to laugh, for the person who wrote them may be in the room, but it is too awfully funny not to laugh the least bit, and I know you are safe."

Millicent smiled stiffly. "Are they funny poems?" she asked. "You seem to find them amusing."

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 hoarse 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 noble 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