“I’m ’most sorry I sent him away,” she thought to herself, “for I may not want to stay. Well, I can go home in a street-car.”
Though Patty’s costume was plain and inconspicuous, it bore so evidently the stamp of taste and refinement, that the saleswoman who met her assumed she had come to buy a hat.
But it was early for fashionable ladies to be out shopping, so the rather supercilious young woman greeted Patty with a cautious air of reserve. It was so different from the effusive manner usually shown to Nan and Patty when they really went shopping, that Patty was secretly much amused. But as she was also secretly greatly embarrassed, it was with an uncertain air that she said:
“I am not shopping; I wish to see Madame Villard.”
“Madame is not here. What can I do for you?”
“I have come in answer to her advertisement for an assistant milliner.”
“Oh,” said the young woman, raising her eyebrows, and at once showing an air of haughty condescension. “You should have asked for the forewoman, not Madame.”
Patty’s sense of humour got the better of her resentment, and it was with difficulty she repressed a smile, as she answered:
“Indeed? Well, it is not yet too late to correct my error. Will you show me to the forewoman?”
Patty’s inflections were not in the least sarcastic, in fact her whole manner was gentle and gracious, but something in her tone, perhaps the note of amusement, made the saleswoman look at her suddenly and sharply.