Mary-'Gusta answered without looking at him.
“That's all right,” she said. “I'm foolish, I guess. He meant to be nice, perhaps. Some girls may like that sort of niceness; I don't.”
“Why didn't you tell him to get out?”
“I wanted to see his samples. It is time for us to buy our Christmas things and I had rather choose them myself, that's all.”
“Oh! But Mr. Hamilton or the Captain—I should think—”
“Oh, they might have bought some that we couldn't sell.”
“The beauty-boxes, for instance?”
Mary-'Gusta smiled. “Why, yes,” she admitted; “perhaps.”
“I see. But it was rather an ordeal for you. Do you have to endure much of that sort of thing?”
“No more than any girl who keeps store, I guess.”