“I guess it will do,” Billy said in an undertone.

That night, for the first time, Maida slept in the room over the little shop.


CHAPTER III

THE FIRST DAY

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If you had gone into the little shop the next day, you would have seen a very pretty picture.

First of all, I think you would have noticed the little girl who sat behind the counter—a little girl in a simple blue-serge dress and a fresh white “tire”—a little girl with shining excited eyes and masses of pale-gold hair, clinging in tendrilly rings about a thin, heart-shaped face—a little girl who kept saying as she turned round and round in her swivel-chair:

“Oh, Granny, do you think anybody’s going to buy anything to-day?”