"That pattern of it all is gone—I can't see how it was unless I close my eyes," she thought.
But when she came to the faded sign "WOMAN'S EXCHANGE AND EMPLOYMENT AGENCY" she smiled. For that at least was exactly as it had been save that it looked tinier and dingier than it had in the old days. She opened the iron-grilled door, her eager heart anticipating the tinkling jangle of the spring bell at the rear, and when the shadowy curtains parted and a grizzled head, surmounted by gold-rimmed spectacles tucked above a worried forehead appeared, Felicia could have cried out with delight.
For there was the Disagreeable Walnut, limping more painfully than she had used to limp, blinking more uncertainly than she had used to blink. Her rasping voice came thinner and more peevish than it had twenty years ago but she called out just the same,
"Well, what's your business?"
Felicia listened dreamily; she seemed to be absorbing the whole shop, the dusty shelves lined with useless "fancy" work, into whose fashioning no fancy at all had crept; the cracked show counters filled with pasty china daubed with violets and cross-eyed cupids,—propped up rakishly in the very front of the dustiest, most battered case of all the fat string dolly leaned despondently and smiled her red floss smile.
"Oh, how you've lasted!" breathed Felicia.
"What?" shrilled the Disagreeable Walnut, blushing under her shriveled skin.
"I mean—the little person made of string—" murmured Felicia abashed.
"I saw her here—when we came for The Wheezy—Mademoiselle D'Ormy and
I."
The Disagreeable Walnut snorted.
"Oh, that Mademoiselle D'Ormy," she squinted through her adjusted glasses, her shaking, purple-veined hands fumbling with the silk that was wound around the bows to protect her thin old temples, "She hain't been here this long while, have you seen her?"