"Are you a servant?" she asked presently.
"Ay."
"Here in Borrowness?"
"Na; I've come in for the day tae see my mither. I'm scullery-maid at the Towers."
"What a pass things must have come to," thought Mona, "that even a scullery-maid should be allowed to dress like this in a good house!"
"The Towers!" she said aloud. "You have been very lucky to get into such a place. Why, if you do your best to learn all you can, you will be a first-rate cook some day."
The girl beamed.
"You know," Mona went on reflectively, "a really first-class London servant would think it beneath her to wear either feathers or flowers. She would have a neat little bonnet like this"—she picked out one of the few desirable articles in the shop—"and she would have it plainly trimmed with a bit of good ribbon or velvet—so!"
She twisted a piece of velvet round the front of the bonnet and put it on her own head. Surmounting her trim gown, with its spotless collar and cuffs, the bonnet looked very well, and to Mona's great surprise it appealed even to the crude taste of her customer.
"It's gey stylish," said the girl, "an' I suppose it'd come a deal cheaper?"