In Apple-Blossom Time: A Fairy-Tale to Date

E-text prepared by Stephen Hope, Fox in the Stars, Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)

Miss Mehitable Upton had come to the city to buy a stock of goods for the summer trade. She had a little shop at the fashionable resort of Keefeport as well as one in the village of Keefe, and June was approaching. It would soon be time to move.
Miss Upton's extreme portliness had caused her hours of laborious selection to fatigue her greatly. Her face was scarlet as she entered a popular restaurant to seek rest and refreshment. She trudged with all the celerity possible toward the only empty table, her face expressing wearied eagerness to reach that desirable haven before any one else espied it.
Scarcely had she eased herself down into the complaining chair, however, before a reason for the unpopularity of this table appeared. A steady draught blew across it strong enough to wave the ribbons on her hat.
This won't do at all, muttered Miss Mehitable. I'm all of a sweat.
She looked about among the busy hungry horde, and her eye alighted on a table at which a young girl sat alone.
Bet she'll hate to see me comin', but here goes, she added, slipping the straps of her bag up on her arm and grasping the sides of the table with both hands.
Ben Barry was wont to say: When Mehit is about to rise and flee, it's a case of Yo heave ho, my hearties. All hands to the ropes. But then it was notorious that Ben's bump of reverence was an intaglio.
Miss Upton got to her feet and started on her trip, her eyes expressing renewed anxiety.
A lantern-faced, round-shouldered man, whose ill-fitting clothes, low collar several sizes too large, and undecided manner suggested that he was a visitor from the rural districts, happened to be starting for the young girl's table at the same moment.
Miss Upton perceived his intention.