"Just saying it? Of course I am. Don't you suppose I know a bargain when I see it? I'd have to pay more than that for a new set, and I have been simply dying for one. Will you take me up?"
"Won't you please take it as a gift?"
"No, I will not. I will go down street this very afternoon and waste my substance upon a set just like this for which I shall have to pay at least two dollars more. Then the next time you come to my room you will be reproached by seeing how I have had to spend my money."
"Janet, you are the most wheedling person I ever saw when you want to accomplish a thing. Of course if that is the way you look at it, I shall be only too glad to let you have the set."
"I ought really to give you full value," said Janet, "for these books are perfectly new."
"No, no. Please let me have that grain of satisfaction. I think you ought to allow me such crumbs of comfort as I can pick up after all you have done for me."
"All right then. Six dollars, going, going, gone to Janet Ferguson." And Janet drew the box from the shelves and took it under her arm. "Oh, how proud I feel," she said. "Stuart gave me the money to get a set for my birthday and I recklessly spent the money. He'd rake me over the coals if he happened to come up and should find I hadn't it. So now I can face him with a clear conscience, and am two dollars to the better, the two dollars that you ought to have."
"Janet!"
"Well, it is so. You might have put up a notice on the bulletin-board and some one might have given you eight dollars."
"Please, please, don't say any more about it, as you love me. I really believe I can afford the skirt now. Could I get any sort of one for five or six dollars?"