He didn’t answer for some seconds, then he said in a strained voice: “That’s the one thing that spoils it all for us, honey—her not bein’ here. All her life, she looked for’ard to this hour, when me an’ her’d bring you to Frisco to go to school. Thank God, the hour’s come—anyway!”
During the next two days they devoted themselves almost entirely to getting acquainted with the vicinity of the hotel. Then they began taking short tours of investigation, growing bolder and bolder until they were finally promenading the miles of streets which form the downtown business section, even venturing a trip to the Cliff House where they spent hours gazing in speechless amazement across the Pacific—the first ocean they had ever seen.
Having become thus partially inured to metropolitan conditions, they found time to think of other matters. Naturally enough, it was Lemuel’s desire to get his daughter an outfit; the best that money could buy would be none too good, he told himself. That daughter, like any woman, was not averse to being prettily clothed, so they started window shopping, staring at the gorgeous displays along lower Grant Avenue, trying to decide on what would be not alone stylish, but attractive and worth the money as well.
But by the end of the fourth day it became quite apparent to them both that choosing a young lady’s first wardrobe destined to give her the required distinction demanded by so select an institution as Longwell’s Seminary was clearly not a job for the uninitiated. They repaired to their little parlor to study over the problem. Lemuel was smoking his after-dinner cigar and frowning at his new tight shoes.
“I have it, daddy!” burst out Dot suddenly, breaking a long silence. “Telegraph to Mrs. Liggs and ask her to come. You can pay her fare and expenses. You remember, she used to live in San José and she knows all about what is proper and tasty in dress. She can get somebody to take care of the store for a few days. I’m sure she’ll come.”
But Lemuel shook his head severely. “We don’t want Mrs. Liggs pickin’ out yore things, Dot, an’ that settles it,” he said shortly.
“Why not? She’s in the dry-goods business and knows all about clothes.”
“She’s old-fashioned, that’s why, an’ she wouldn’t talk to me when I seen her——”
“She is not old-fashioned, daddy, and you know it,” cried Dot spiritedly. “Didn’t she make me that pretty pink dress last summer, and everybody admired it? You said yourself it was nicer than anything you’d seen on me. I know that if we try to buy a wardrobe ourselves, they’ll—— Well, we’ll have to take what they tell us is the latest style, because we don’t know any better. Can’t you see that you’ll save money and everything by having Mrs. Liggs come? Please send for her, daddy!”
They discussed the matter for upward of an hour, and because her father’s objections were weak and unconvincing, Dot argued all the more strenuously in an effort to have her way. Nor was Lemuel so greatly opposed to her plan as he pretended to be. He firmly believed that Mrs. Liggs was the very person who could discriminate between what was modish and what was not in a young lady’s apparel, and that, furthermore, she would not hesitate to close up her store for a week and board the first train north if she knew that Dot required her services in a matter of such moment.