"They are very pretty, if one wants them," replied Lucy, smiling, "but I do not stand in need of anything of the sort at present."
"Just like her!" said Delia half aloud, as Lucy walked to the other end of the shop. "I should not like to be as stingy as she is. She has plenty of money, too, for I saw her purse yesterday when she was buying some oranges in the hall, and she had quite a roll of bills. She never thought whether or not she could afford that."
"She gave them to little Kitty Mastick, I know," said Emily, looking round to see that Lucy was not within hearing. "Lucy is careful of her money it is true, but I don't think you do right to call her stingy. She is always ready to assist poor people, or do anything of that sort, and she subscribed more for the reading room than you did, Delia."
"Oh, yes, because she knows it pays," sneered Delia. "The teachers always think well of any one who subscribes to the reading room."
"Oh, come Delia, that is hardly fair. You know you said yourself; that Lucy was very good-natured when she took care of Clarissa Crosby all that time when she had the toothache. I am sure she is always ready to do a good turn for any one that wants it."
"I don't deny that Lucy is a very good girl," replied Delia, apparently rather ashamed of what she had said, "and, of course, she knows her own affairs best. But come, don't you mean to have some of these collars? I am sure you need them, for yours are as old-fashioned as the days before the flood."
Emily again pleaded her want of money, and was again over-ruled, and the collars were folded up, and the price added to her account. The purchase was a beautiful one, and the price was certain sufficiently reasonable, yet it was with an uneasy feeling that she pursued her walk homeward with Delia, Lucy having dropped a little behind, with one of the day scholars, who had joined them as they issued from the store.
"I wish I had not bought those things," said she at last. "My old collars would have answered well enough, and I have spent four dollars since I came out, for things, which after all were not necessary."
"You have not exactly spent it," observed Delia.
"I have run in debt though, and that is even worse," replied Emily. "Father is so very particular about that. I believe he thinks it is as bad as stealing. I must contrive some way to pay my bills before he finds them out; I should think they would not come to much altogether! Let me see." And she began a mental calculation, which, however, she soon abandoned, for Emily was not one to look a disagreeable truth in the face, so long as she could help it, and she could not help seeing that the amount was likely, after all, to be very considerable.