“Oh, I don’t care for that now.  Tilly is such a darling in sticking to me, in spite of their disapproval,” laughing a little, “that I think I ought to stick to her;” and, nodding to her auntie, Peggy started on her friendly errand.

“What impudence!  She’s actually coming over to us uninvited.  Well, I must say she has nerve!” muttered Agnes, as she observed Peggy’s movements.

Coming forward, Peggy nodded to the whole group of girls; but it was to Tilly she addressed herself, and by Tilly’s side she seated herself.  It was in doing this that the delicate material of her dress caught in a protruding nail in the splint piazza chair with an ominous sound.

“Oh, your pretty gown! it’s torn!” cried Tilly.

The two sprang up to examine it, and found an ugly little rent that had nearly pulled out one of the wrought rosebuds.

“It’s too bad,—­too bad!” sympathized Tilly.

“But it’s easily mended, and it won’t show,” answered Peggy, cheerfully.

“It isn’t easy to mend that South American stuff so that it won’t show,” remarked Agnes, coolly.

“I know it isn’t usually,” answered Peggy, as coolly; “but auntie can mend almost anything.”

“It is a perfectly beautiful dress.  I wish I had one just like it,” broke forth Tilly, hurriedly, hardly knowing what she was saying in the desire to say something kind.

“You could easily send for one like it,” spoke up Agnes, “if you knew anybody out there, or what shop or convent address to send to.”

“We could send for you,” said Peggy, turning to Tilly.  Tilly looked startled.

“Have you friends out there?” asked Agnes, with an impertinent stare at Peggy.

“Yes,” answered Peggy, curtly, meeting Agnes’s stare with a look of sudden haughtiness.

Tilly turned hot and cold, but through all her perturbation was one feeling of satisfaction.  Peggy could stand her ground, it seemed, and resent impertinence; but, “Oh, dear!” said this poor Tilly to herself, “that South American gown, I suppose, proves that she must be that Smithson man’s daughter; but grandmother was right,—­she is innocent of the facts of the case, of that there can be no doubt,—­and we must be good to her, and now is the time to begin,—­this very minute, when Agnes is planning what hateful thing she can do next.”

Fired by this thought, Tilly sprang to her feet, and, casting a glance of scorn and contempt at Agnes, slipped her hand over Peggy’s arm and said,—­

“Come, Peggy, let’s go over to the other end of the piazza and walk up and down; it’s much pleasanter there.”

Warm-hearted Tilly’s intentions were excellent; but her look of contempt, her meaning words, instead of cowing and controlling Agnes, only roused her to deeper anger, which resulted in an action that probably had not been premeditated even by her jealous and bitter spirit.  Tilly will never forget that action.  It was just as she was turning away with Peggy, when she saw that angry face barring her way, when she heard those ominous words, “Miss Smithson,” and then—­and then that outstretched hand thrusting forth to Peggy that fluttering, dreadful slip of paper!