Bridget needed money; and as she had worn her brilliant costume once and allowed her friends to see how becoming it was, she carried it the next morning to a second-hand dealer and sold it for three dollars in cash.
Scarcely had she left the shop when a lady of Swedish extraction—a widow with four small children in her train—entered and asked to look at a gown. The dealer showed her the one he had just bought from Bridget, and its gay coloring so pleased the widow that she immediately purchased it for $3.65.
"Ay tank ets a good deal money, by sure," she said to herself; "but das leedle children mus' have new fadder to mak mind un tak care dere mudder like, by yimminy! An' Ay tank no man look may way in das ole dress I been wearing."
She took the gown and the four children to her home, where she lost no time in trying on the costume, which fitted her as perfectly as a flour-sack does a peck of potatoes.
"Das beau—tiful!" she exclaimed, in rapture, as she tried to see herself in a cracked mirror. "Ay go das very afternoon to valk in da park, for das man-folks go crazy-like ven he sees may fine frocks!"
Then she took her green parasol and a hand-bag stuffed with papers (to make it look prosperous and aristocratic) and sallied forth to the park, followed by all her interesting flock.
The men didn't fail to look at her, as you may guess; but none looked with yearning until the Woggle-Bug, sauntering gloomily along a path, happened to raise his eyes and see before him his heart's delight the very identical Wagnerian plaids which had filled him with such unbounded affection.
"Aha, my excruciatingly lovely creation!" he cried, running up and kneeling before the widow; "I have found you once again. Do not, I beg of you, treat me with coldness!"
For he had learned from experience not to unduly startle his charmer at their first moment of meeting; so he made a firm attempt to control himself, that the wearer of the checked gown might not scorn him.