"No," said Mona. "It would not come any cheaper at the moment, if you get a good straw; but it would last as long as half-a-dozen hats with flowers and feathers. You see, it's like this," she went on, leaning forward on the counter in her earnestness, "you want to look like the ladies at the Towers. Well, it is very natural that you should; we all want to look like the people we admire. The ladies have good things, and plenty of them; but that requires money, and those of us who have not got much money must be content to be like them in one way or the other,—we must either have good things or plenty of things. A common servant buys cheap satins, and flowers and laces that look shabby in a week. No one mistakes her for a lady, and she does not look like a good servant. A really first-class maid, as I said before, gets a few good simple things, that wear a long time, and she looks—well—a great deal more like a lady than the other does!"
The girl hesitated. "I daursay I'd get mair guid o' the bannet," she said.
"I am sure you would. But I don't want you to decide in a hurry. Take time to think it over."
"Na, I'll tak' the bannet."
Then ensued a discussion of details, and at last the girl prepared to go.
"And when you are getting a new dress," said Mona, "get one that will go well with the bonnet—a plain dark-blue or black serge. You will never tire of that, and you have no idea how nice you will look in it."
The girl looked admiringly at Mona's own simple gown, and went away smiling.
"If all my customers were like that," thought Mona, "I should be strongly inclined to pitch my tent in Borrowness for the rest of my natural life."
Truly, it never rains but it pours. Scarcely had Mona closed the door on customer Number Two, when customer Number Three appeared, and customer Number Three was a man.
"Good morning," he said courteously.