“Yes, I think so. At least, I shall not be absent for the same reason as to-day,” said Beatrice, with a return of something like her natural manner.
“That’s good! I can sing so much better with you than with anybody else,” remarked Miss Agnew, smiling pleasantly, nodding cordially, and passing onward immediately.
“Well! I’m in for it now! If Helen Agnew is inclined to tell, the whole class can ‘point the finger of scorn’ at me to-morrow. But how cold it is! How warm she looked! She had evidently been having luncheon at this great hotel, for she came out, or rather she walked along with a ‘rocky’-looking old gentleman, using a toothpick. I suppose he was her father. How nice it must be to have a father! And think of being able, a school-girl, out of one’s own pocket money, to buy a dozen chrysanthemums for one’s mother—at such a price! Yet, after all, selling them for one’s mother may be just as noble. I’ll ‘play pretend’ it is, any way. And I am quite refreshed. I’ll ‘buckle tae’ with a good will now! There are only twenty-five left; and—”
Beatrice fell to ruminating. She forgot that she was on a street corner, presumably to sell flowers. She paid no attention to the rude pushes and jostles that she received, but swayed this way and that, accommodating her slight person to the needs of the crowd, till one more urgent pedestrian than the others suddenly caught the handle of his walking-stick in that of her basket and ruthlessly tore it from her grasp.
Beatrice aroused herself with a scream. “My flowers! Oh, my flowers! Please, please, don’t tread upon them, people! Please give me time to—”
“Eh! Bon, what’s the matter? Who took ’em? This chap?” demanded Robert, who had returned, and eagerly catching hold of the wrong person. “Look a here, man! You’d better look out how you steal my sister’s chrysms! I’ll let you know I— Ginger! There’s the old fellow himself!”
Alas! the inevitable crowd! Nobody can utter a sound above the natural, but dozens of itching ears must pause to learn why.
“Beg pardon, Miss. It was an accident. I am extremely sorry. Are they injured? Ah! I see. Hopelessly. The price, please, I will make good the loss; but I am in a hurry— Yes, Dolloway, directly. Keep close to me, Dolloway. I’ll look out for you. Eh? Hey? What?”
Bonny was stooping to gather up her ruined treasure, but something in the voice startled her, a peculiar softness of the r’s, and a broad inflection of the a’s.
“It is the corner of Fate!” cried the girl, recklessly, and lifted herself face to face with Mr. Chidly Brook.