Again the young woman shook her head.
“Nor yet can we find anybody who does,” she said. “She was a queer old soul and she came and went as quietly as a mouse.”
“And you don’t even know her name?” asked Mollie, idly.
“No, Miss. You see,” the girl went on, warming to her subject, “she had been coming here so long with her beautiful work that we’d come to think of her as part of the Exchange—like a door, or something—somebody who would always be here. And we none of us knew how fond we were of the gentle old soul until she failed to show up. Even then we thought she’d turn up in a week or two, but she didn’t. We think now that maybe she’s dead. She was very old and feeble.”
“Too bad,” said Betty, her warm heart instantly touched. “Do you sell many of these?” she added, touching a piece of embroidery.
“Not so many,” returned the clerk. “You see the work is so rare that we have to charge a pretty good price for it. People come here and say how beautiful it is—and go away. And yet we can’t honestly sell it for any less. We promised the old lady a pretty good price for it, you see. It’s worth it.”
“Oh, dear,” murmured Grace, petulantly. “How unfortunate.”
“What’s the matter, now?” asked the Little Captain, politely.
“Oh,” said Grace, replacing the centerpiece she had been studying upon a little pile of pieces, “I had my mind set on buying that for mother’s birthday, but if it’s so very expensive I guess I can’t.”
“We might make a special price for you,” said the young saleswoman obligingly, and straightway they fell to bartering while the other girls moved away to study other articles of interest on the floor.