“I believe we are going to have a pleasant afternoon, after all,” said Mrs. Henryson. “Perhaps we had better lunch down here and get all our shopping done to-day.”
“Just as you say, mamma,” the daughter answered, a little listlessly, accustomed to accept all her mother’s sudden changes of plans.
They turned the corner and went a little way down the avenue, as the brakes of an up-town train scraped and squeaked when it stopped at the station high above their heads.
Mrs. Henryson paused to look into one of the broad windows of a gigantic store.
“Minnie,” she said, solemnly, “I don’t believe hats are going to be any smaller this summer, in spite of all they say in the papers.”
“It doesn’t seem like it,” responded her daughter, perfunctorily. She had already bought her own hat for the spring, and just then her mind was wandering far afield. She was dutifully accompanying her mother for a morning’s shopping, although she would rather have had the time to herself, so that she could think out the question that was puzzling her.
Her mother continued to peer into the window, comparing the hats with one another, and Minnie’s attention was arrested by a little girl of eight who stopped almost at her side and stamped three times on the iron cover of an opening in the sidewalk, nearly in front of the window where the two ladies were standing. After giving this signal the child drew back; and in less than a minute the covers opened wide, and then an elevator began to rise, bringing up a middle-aged man begrimed with oil and coal-dust.
“Hello, dad,” cried the child.
“Hello, kid!” he answered. “How’s mother?”
“She’s better,” the girl answered. “Not so much pain.”