"I should say this season. I don't think you will find a prettier one than this, madam."
"It's very sweet. But aren't they unlucky, unless you happen to have been born in the right month?" She turned to me. "When is Barbara's birthday?"
"May," I said unhesitatingly. "I mean March."
"Anyhow," said Miss Middleton. "I know it's wrong for moonstones, because I was thinking of giving her some two years ago, and it had to "be opals instead."
"We both thought of it," I said.
Miss Middleton looked at me so admiringly that I began to get reckless.
"Besides, we don't know the size of her neck," I went on. "And she never smokes—I mean she never doesn't know what to say to anybody. So I think we should be making a mistake if we gave her this. I do indeed. Now if it had been anybody else but Barbara——"
The man looked from one to the other of us in bewilderment.
"If you could show us some hatpins instead?" said Miss Middleton hurriedly, before he could open his mouth.
"This is excellent," I said, as he retired in confusion; "we're working down well. All we've got to do now is to wait till he comes back and then say that we're sorry but we meant hairpins. With hair-pins you're practically there."