Five hundred dollars! Madame’s glance fell upon a silver tea-service which she had long coveted.
“Possibly. I’ll think about it,” she said, and went her way.
Such a lovely blue moire in one of the shop windows—five dollars a yard. It made one’s mouth water to look at it. Such a lovely Brussels in another!—the parlors needed carpeting anew. Such lovely, lovely things in all the windows! that one really ought to have. As for the child, of what earthly use could that costly trinket ever be to her? Like as not she stole it, as Charley said.
When madame reached home her purse was even better filled than when she started out, and the silver tea-set would be sent up from Forsyth’s to-morrow. Meantime a curious piece of workmanship in the jeweler’s show-case was attracting much attention.
What a queer way to find the brother is this—tending Lizzie and being knocked about by Charley, and robbed of mamma’s last gift! Julie fears she will never get it, for when she asked madame for it again, madame blushed and did not reply. What strange people these Americans are! They make little children take care of little children! And she is afraid of Charley. She trembles now to think of him. And who is that creature peering out of the closet over there?
It is like the woman who let the room where mamma was taken sick.
Why, this is that room! and here is the mother beside her.
Julie leans over and asks: