“I’ll declare!” exclaimed Mrs. Merrill, looking at her watch after Frances left them. “It’s almost twelve o’clock already! And we were to meet father at one. If you girls want to see anything of the toys and dolls and playrooms, we’d better not be sitting around here any longer.”
Of course the girls did want to see the toys and dolls and everything. When they got to the fourth floor where all the children’s things were kept, they were sorry they had spent even a minute any place else. For all the lovely dolls and marvelous toys and enticing games and beautiful pictures and fascinating puzzles made a person think that Santa Claus’s shop and fairyland and magic were all mixed up together and set down in one place. The girls looked and looked and looked. They “oh-ed” and “ah-ed” and exclaimed till they couldn’t think of anything more to say—and then they kept right on looking just the same.
Mary Jane picked out the doll coat she wanted Georgiannamore to have and Alice selected a lovely desk. They agreed upon a set of dishes and upon charming furniture for their balcony—just the right size too.
“And we’ll pretend we’ll buy it all, mother,” said Mary Jane, who knew perfectly well she couldn’t buy all the things she talked about getting, “and we’ll pretend we’ll have it all sent up, that’ll be such fun.”
So they pretended and looked and looked and pretended till they had been over most all that part of the store.
“Now then,” said Mrs. Merrill, “if we’re to meet Dadah for lunch—”
“Oh, goody!” cried Alice, “are we to meet him here?”
“Not here,” said Mrs. Merrill, “but in this store in the lunch room and in ten minutes. So we’d better wash our hands and go to the lunch room floor.”
Mr. Merrill was waiting for them and had a table engaged close by a charming fountain (“Just think of a fountain in a house!” exclaimed Mary Jane when she spied it) and all the time Mary Jane sat there eating, she could look right over and watch the fishes and she could hear the splash of the water.
But Mary Jane wasn’t thinking of fishes or water just then. She was hungry. And the things her father read to her sounded so good—oh, dear, but they did sound good! She and Alice had a dreadfully hard time deciding just what did sound the best. But Alice finally decided on stuffed chicken legs (she hadn’t an idea what they were but they sounded good) and potato salad and strawberry parfait. And Mary Jane chose chicken pie—a whole one all her own—and hashed brown potatoes and orange sherbet.