She put on her hat and jacket and ran downstairs, calling to Susan to accompany her. Susan, however, was very busy, and grumbled when the little girl made her request.
“Dear me, Miss Nan!” she said; “nurse has given me a lot to do, and I am very late as it is. Cannot the flowers wait?”
“Oh! it does not matter,” answered Nan.
A daring idea rushed through her mind. Why should she have Susan, to keep her company? It was only a step from the Richmonds’ house to Johnson’s shop; she could easily go there alone. The fact that she was forbidden ever to go out by herself was completely forgotten. In her mother’s time she had constantly been sent on messages, and surely she was just as sensible a little girl now. So, calling Jack the puppy to accompany her, she started on her mission. She arrived at the shop in good time, and there she saw two girls standing by the counter. They were ordering flowers too, and talking to each other in a somewhat excited manner. Their accents were not the accents of London girls; they had a high-pitched note in them, which Nan at first thought very disagreeable, and then considered fascinating. The girls were beautifully and extravagantly dressed. They were taller and older than Nan. They wore velvet frocks of a rich blue, and fawn-coloured jackets, and they had blue velvet hats which drooped over their faces. The hats were trimmed with enormous ostrich-feathers, also a deep royal-blue. The girls had quantities of very thick and very bright golden hair, which hung in curly masses down their backs and over their shoulders. They had each of them deep-blue eyes—very deep and very dark—and long, curly black lashes. Nan considered them quite the most lovely human beings she had ever looked at. They would not have taken the least notice of the quiet, grave-looking little girl who had come into the shop but for the fact that Jack suddenly made a dive at one of their dresses, and catching it in his teeth, pulled at it, as much as to say, “Now for a game of play!”
The girl whose dress was attacked immediately tried to shake the bull-terrier off; but the bull-terrier would not let go. It was the mission of all bull-pups never to let go, and here was his opportunity. He hung on as if for grim death, and the girl’s face got red and her eyes flashed with temper. She turned to Nan and said in an imperious voice:
“Do take your dog off, please. What a horrid little beast he is!”
“He is not horrid at all,” said Nan, very cross at anything disparaging being said of Jack; but she caught the pup in her arms, and stood red and panting, waiting for the girls to leave the shop.
The elder girl, whose dress had been the subject of Jack’s attack, found that it was slightly torn, and she turned to her sister and said:
“What an insufferable little dog, and what a still more insufferable girl!”
“Oh, hush, Flora!” said the girl so addressed.