"Hello, Lady Ermyntrude!" said she. "I thought I'd pick you up some place. Just a jiffy, and we can skip to the schoolroom together, if your ladyship pleases."
"I am glad!" said Win, and as they went out side by side she ventured to add: "Please do tell me why you call me Lady Ermyntrude. I hope I'm not like anything so awful as that?"
"Oh, there's always a Lady Ermyntrude in every English book you read, and you look as if you'd walked out of one. I don't know why, but you do. I kind of like you, though."
"So do I you," said Win, but did not tell her that she was a sardine. This might be a worse epithet in a foreign language even than Lady Ermyntrude.
"I'm for the toy department. What are you?" rapped out the clear little voice that matched the clear little personality—a personality which, at the top of its pompadour, did not reach the tip of Win's ear.
"Mine is called a two-hour bargain sale––"
"Heaven help you! Basement?"
"No, ground floor."
"Thank your stars. That's a cut above. Most amatoors start in the basement bargain sales. If they live through the first day of that—well! But you're all right. You've got the look of the ones who win."
"That's my name—'Win'—Winifred Child."