“Not a thing, mother dear. I didn’t have but fifty cents in my purse when I started. You know it’s almost pay day,” she rippled out with a voice like falling water, as if it were a joke between them.
“Well, I told him they weren’t yours, of course, and I packed him off with his packages. But just when you ought to have been coming back, didn’t he arrive again with his parcels, and insist upon leaving them. He said he would lose his job if he took them back, that Madame told him not to bring them back, they were paid for, and they were a present. The lazy little scamp didn’t want to go back tonight, I suppose, and he actually went away and left them with me right while I was telling him he shouldn’t; just sailed away in his delivery car and left me standing with the things at my feet. I was all upset about it. They may be valuable things, and somebody fuming now about them. Maybe we ought to call up the Madame and find out where they really belong, and telephone the owners they can come and get them. Very likely somebody wanted them at once to wear tonight, or pack up or something. I tried Grevet’s, but they didn’t answer. They said the shop was closed—”
“Grevet’s!” Bessie lifted eyes wide with alarm, and her face grew white again. “You don’t mean they came from Grevet’s?”
“Why, yes,” said her mother, puzzled. “You don’t mean you know anything about them?”
“Where are they, mother? I must see them first. If it’s what I think it is, there’s a mistake, and I ought to hunt up the right people at once—”
She rose from the chair and swayed slightly, catching at the table to steady herself.
“Bessie, you are sick!” cried her mother. “Something has happened. What is it? You must tell me at once, and you must lie right down on the couch.”
She caught the girl in her arms and drew her toward the old-fashioned couch in the corner of the kitchen.
“What is it, Bessie? Tell me quick! What has happened? You can’t hide it from me any longer!”
“Don’t get worried, mother,” said Bessie, allowing her mother to draw her down on the couch, “it wasn’t much. Just a little accident. I wasn’t hurt, not much more than scared, I fancy. They took me to the hospital and looked me over thoroughly, and they insisted on keeping me there until a nurse could come home with me. That’s why I was so late. You see—”