The small, excited woman was clinging desperately to the arm of another woman, who towered above the crowd.
“Why, that’s Miss Mingle!” cried Tavia to Dorothy.
“Oh, Miss Mingle!” called out Dorothy.
“Girls,” cried the little Glenwood teacher, excitedly, “this woman snatched my purse!”
They were all too excited at the moment to find anything strange in thus meeting with one another.
The big woman calmly surveyed the girls: “She, the blond one, knocked your purse down with her muff, I was goin’ to pick it up, that’s all. It’s under your feet now.”
The woman slowly backed into the crowd.
Dorothy’s eyes opened wide with wonder! The thing that had fallen had certainly made a crash! and the leather end sticking from the cuff of the woman’s fur coat sleeve surely looked like a purse! Dorothy gasped at the horror of it! What could she do? The woman was moving slowly farther and farther away.
Miss Mingle stooped to the floor in search of the purse. As quick as a flash the woman slipped out of the crowd, as Miss Mingle loosened her hold. Amazed and horrified at the boldness of the theft, Dorothy for one instant stood undecided, then she sprang after the woman and faced her unflinchingly:
“Give me that purse! It’s in the cuff of your coat sleeve!”