She was torn between her desire to serve Arethusa, whom, girl-like, she had voted a darling, and her great fear of offending one so powerful as Mrs. Bixby. The floor-walker suddenly turned his attention in their direction, which added to her agitation. But she need not have worried quite so much; her first customer made a sturdy champion of any cause, and she was still most undaunted, lorgnette or no lorgnette.
"There's a whole stack of girls here," declared Arethusa hotly, "and just because you can't help being disagreeable, you want the same one I have! Jessie sold me this shawl before you ever came, and she let me take it over to match it in ribbon!"
Mrs. Bixby displayed an interest. She raised the lorgnette once more.
"Indeed! And had you paid for it?"
"It's none of your business whether I had or not! It's not your store, is it? But I hadn't, so there, if you really want to know!"
"I shall report you immediately," said Mrs. Bixby, majestically to Jessie, "for allowing goods to be taken away from your counter without being paid for, and for not waiting on your customers properly. You were very impudent. And...."
"Why, you're a horrible old woman!" interrupted Arethusa, as if the discovery was most surprising. "A perfectly horrible old woman! But go right ahead and report, if you want to! I reckon it won't hurt anything very much, because I brought the shawl back and I'm going to charge it right now, this very minute!"
"And you," continued Mrs. Bixby, once more consigning the tempestuously excited Arethusa to nothingness with her glance, "are the most decidedly ill-bred young person I ever saw!"
She sailed away and sought the floor-walker.
His glance, after a brief conversation with her, was sternly directed in the direction of the shawl department. He nodded several times in answer to what she said to him, and finally bowed her deferentially towards the outer door.