They went in the automobile, to Arethusa's great delight, and the palatial establishment where it stopped, and which Elinor told her had the prettiest dresses in town to offer in just such emergencies as this, was so enormous a place and so filled to overflowing with scurrying people, that Arethusa wondered if every human being in Lewisburg had not come a-buying this morning, and right in this particular shop. She was not used to stores where she bumped into somebody at every other step. She apologized several times from the front door to the elevator, for such collisions; because her delighted eyes would insist in wandering to the bewilderment of riches displayed on every side, instead of finding her a passage through the crowd. She could not understand how Elinor could pass them all so calmly by, looking so straight ahead. Had she not been afraid of losing her, Arethusa would have stopped, more than once, for a little closer view.
They went up in the elevator to the third floor, and the elevator was another new sensation for Arethusa. There were no elevators within miles of the Farm.
The whole third floor was entirely given over to ready-made garments of every description; cloaks and suits and dresses of every conceivable variety of cloth and color, hanging carelessly over tables and chairs, and neatly displayed inside lighted glass cases, and girls were rushing about carrying still more piled in their arms. There were more clothes then Arethusa had imagined could ever have been made, right here on the one floor of this huge shop.
To the floor-walker who stepped up to greet them, Elinor conveyed her desire to buy a dress for Arethusa; "And I should like Miss Rosa, Mr. Wells, if she's not too busy."
Mr. Wells, bowing grandly from the waist, ushered them into a small room hung all around with mirrors, and disappeared. Then he reappeared in a few moments to announce that Miss Rosa would be with them very shortly, if Mrs. Worthington would be so kind as to wait.
Arethusa was simply overcome by the rapidity with which events moved forward, to carry her with them. Speech was an impossibility. She could only follow Elinor silently.
She sat and gazed about her in the little mirrored room. Her quaint figure was repeated again and again on all sides in a very bewildering way; and she noted that the hat of each Arethusa had somehow got crooked far down over one ear. She straightened it immediately. There were many Elinors in the mirrors also, and Arethusa admired the grace of those reflections with unaffected showing of her admiration. She especially admired the soft sweep of Elinor's long stole of moleskin. There was no more envy in her regard of the difference of their appearance in these many unmistakable evidences of it than there had been when they had both been dressed for the Anniversary the night before. Arethusa rejoiced that Elinor was such a Beautiful Creature; and it was Perfect Bliss to be with her and watch her lovely clothes, without worrying about herself in any way.
Miss Rosa did not keep them waiting long, and at Elinor's request when she did come, she flitted away in a business-like manner that spelled a knowledge of what was wanted, to return bearing an armful of color; pale blues and pinks and lavenders and whites and deeper creams, in the softest of satins and silks and chiffons and lace. Among all this loveliness was glimpsed by Arethusa a fleck of green.
"Mother," this whispered to Elinor, as Miss Rosa in her modish and well-fitting black crepe de chine and her air of knowing what she was about, was just a trifle awe-inspiring, "do you suppose that would be a Green Dress?"
But Miss Rosa heard the whisper. She smiled in a friendly way at Arethusa, for Miss Rosa was a kindly soul, and produced from the very bottom of her pile of beautiful things a Green Frock of the identical shade so beloved by Arethusa.