"Which means that you can't get rich all at once!" cried Miss Willis, grinning. "Well, I'm sorry you can't squeeze a fairly good sum out of our nice, generous employers."
Faith went back to her counter, feeling sad at heart. She was beginning to question the wisdom of her mercy toward Miss Willis.
"I don't believe that anything would ever change her heart," she whispered to herself, and then a great wave of shame swept over her as she felt that she had questioned the power of the Almighty.
She stepped behind the counter just in time to see Miss Fairbanks changing the prices on a lot of special ribbons, but before she could ask any questions Miss Jones came up to her.
"There's a milliner in this block who is selling those same ribbons for fifty cents a yard," she said, "and of course, Denton, Day & Co. are not going to stand that; they are going to undercut her in everything until they break up her business. You see, if we sell them for thirty-nine cents, she'll have to come down, which will mean that she'll lose a whole lot of money."
"But won't Denton, Day & Co. be losing money, too?" asked Faith. She was a little too green to quite see the logic of this action.
"Not a cent," was the somewhat surprising answer. "You see, they buy in such large quantities that they get it cheaper than she does; but even if they didn't, they could still make it up on some other goods, while she, poor soul, has no way of squaring her losses."
Faith's eyes opened wide as she listened to this explanation.
"That is exactly what they did with my father," she said slowly. "They undercut his prices so that he could not sell his books, then when his bills came due he could not pay them. Oh, the thing is perfectly horrible, Miss Jones! That poor, poor milliner! Oh, how I pity her!"
Miss Jones had listened with considerable surprise. It was the first she had heard of Faith's personal grievance against the company.