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."