“Are you to draw chalk marks to show which is which?” asked Mr. Wright, who was becoming more and more interested in her eager little hostess.
“I am to have partitions made in the back, not to go all the way to the ceiling but just high enough to give me some privacy, and we are to have a huge portiere to divide the front shop from the store room and a smaller one cutting off our information bureau. The carpenters are going to work to-day on our partitions and the plumbers also are to install our bath tub, kitchen sink, gas stove, etc. My furniture is here and I intend to set up housekeeping immediately.”
“Not in all this confusion?”
“But all this confusion will be worse confounded in a few hours. Mary Louise is coming in a few minutes and is bringing her own housemaid to help clean up and Danny Dexter is coming later in the afternoon with some of his friends to help.”
Mrs. Wright began to feel sorry that she had not put off their visit until afternoon. Her ruling passion of having her daughters receive attention from young men was uppermost. She had not thought of this absurd shop as a place where desirable young men might come. At any rate, she intended to wait until Mary Louise should arrive and set the matter at rest in regard to all of her daughters being invited to the wedding.
While Mrs. Wright’s ruling passion was the desire to have her daughters popular and married, another passion was almost as strong in her bosom and that was, cleaning up. What a field here presented itself! She was sure she could take hold of the disorder and get things cleaned and into place much better than could Mary Louise’s maid. This Josie O’Gorman might be able to scrub and clean, but she was pretty sure her daughter Elizabeth could not; at least she had never seen her do more than dust the parlor at home.
“Here, child, give me that hammer! You don’t know how to open a box,” she said to Elizabeth, who was drawing nails from the top of a huge box of books.
“But I can,” insisted Elizabeth; “at least I can learn.”
“Pooh! Just let me do it.” She grasped the hammer, but Elizabeth refused to release her hold.
“I am going to open the box,” she announced firmly and proceeded to carry out the statement in spite of her mother’s protests.