"No, I won't come to supper, but I'll come in time for the acting. I am very much obliged, I am sure."
Louisa gave vent to a great yawn.
"Seems to me," she said, "that you aint up to much shopping; you haven't gone into one shop yet."
"No more I have," said Alison. "I have changed my mind; I won't buy the things I meant to to-night. I'll go home now; so I'll say good-evening."
"Good-evening," said Louisa, accompanying her words with a sweeping courtesy which she considered full of style and grace.
She went home chuckling to herself.
"I guess that acting will finish up Alison's love affair," she thought. "It won't be any fault of mine if it doesn't. Oh, good-evening, Mr. Sampson."
George Sampson, who had been looking out for Louisa, now joined her, and the two walked back to the pawnshop arm in arm, and talking very confidentially together, Louisa had been true to her own predictions—she had so flattered and so assiduously wooed George Sampson that he was her devoted slave by this time. He came to see her every night, and had assured Jim Hardy long ago that of all people in the world Louisa was the last who had anything to do with the stealing of the five-pound note. Louisa's own charms were the sort which would appeal to a man like Sampson, but whether he would have made up his mind to marry her, if he did not know that she was safe to have a nice little sum down from her father on her wedding-day, remains an open question.
As Alison walked home, many angry and jealous thoughts whirled through her brain. Was Jim really false to her?—she forgot all about his face that afternoon; she forgot his earnest words. She only recalled Louisa's look of triumph and the little play which was to be acted in her presence.
"Yes, I'll be there," thought the girl; "yes, Christmas Eve shall decide it."