"Why, mum," said Hobson, "I declare to goodness, you look ten years younger since that young lady come here!"
"I am ten years younger, Hobson!" said Mrs. Delansing, gravely. "I will have the nightcap with the Valenciennes frill, if you please."
Hildegarde sent her little trunk off by the expressman, and after bidding good-bye to Hobson, who begged her most earnestly to come again soon, started off for her final shopping-bout. She had some idea of lunching at Purcell's, and taking an afternoon train for home. There were still several things to be attended to, and she might—it was not very far from Blank & Blank's—she might be able to run round and see if Rose Flower were at home. It was doubtful, for she had been away most of the fall, but there was always a chance of her having returned. The dear Rose! How good it would be to see her, and Doctor Flower, and, perhaps, Bubble!
It was eleven o'clock before she reached Blank & Blank's, and the vast shop was filled with a surging crowd of women, young and old, smart and dowdy, rich and poor. Here and there a lone man was seen, standing bewildered, with a sample in his hand of something that he was to match; here and there, too, stood the floor-walkers, in calm and conscious dignity, the heroes of the shopping-world; but these were only occasional flecks on the frothing tide of womanhood. Hildegarde, after several vain attempts, succeeded in reaching the counter she sought. Before it stood a row of women, elbow to elbow, each bent on her own quest; behind it were the shop-women, endeavouring to satisfy all demands at one and the same moment.
Endeavouring, most of them, that is; but even the shop-woman, tried as she is in the furnace, is not always pure gold. The young woman who stood near Hildegarde may have been too tired, or may have been ill; she certainly was rude. Hildegarde had taken her stand directly behind a plainly dressed, elderly woman, shrewdly judging that she would be likely to make some definite purchase and then depart, instead of fingering half the goods on the counter, as many of the customers were doing. The elderly woman was evidently in haste. She held up the black cashmere that she had been examining, and said, civilly, "Will you please tell me the price of this?" The question was repeated several times; the shop-woman, after one glance at the quiet, unstylish figure, turned her shoulder, and began to press some goods volubly on a departing shopper.
"Please!" said the quiet woman again. "I am in haste, and want to buy some of this. Will you please tell me the price?"
"You'll have to wait your turn, lady!" was the reply; and voice and tone were equally ill-bred. "I can't wait on everybody at once."
"I have been waiting fifteen minutes," was the reply; "and my turn has come over and over again."
That was enough for Hildegarde. She reached over the woman's shoulder, and rapped sharply on the counter. "Will you tell the lady the price of this cashmere, or shall I call Mr. Jones?"
The shop-woman looked up hastily, caught sight of two blazing eyes, and a face like white lightning, and quailed.