Miss Angell, who hadn't said, saw no reason why she shouldn't now make it any price that appealed to her better judgment.
"Twenty dollars," she answered, clapping on a cool third of its price, and Mrs. Alexander, who cared very little what she paid for it, beamed at her, and said:
"Put them in a box and send it out to my carriage; they are the handsomest things I've seen for a long time, and so wonderfully cheap! You are quite right; they are beauties."
"If you'd done as I wanted you to," cried Miss Juliana, the tears of vexation gathering in her eyes, as she saw the now incomparable bits of fancy work borne off before their very faces, "you wouldn't have stopped for such a trifle as a few crumbs of sugar, Sister."
Miss Ellicott's face was very red, but she knew better than to show the chagrin she felt, to add to the delight of the purchaser over her bargain, so she contented herself with saying, as she stalked to the door:
"You said you didn't want them, Juliana, the same as I did."
"But I wasn't so set about it," said Miss Juliana, with a regretful glance at the box, now gayly tied up by the jubilant Miss Angell and delivered into the hands of the little errand-girl to be given to the Alexander footman, "and I'm sure if you hadn't insisted, I should have seen that they weren't hurt."
"Well, do come on now, Juliana," said her sister sharply, in all the anguish of having the whole blame deposited upon her person. "Since the things are gone, what is the use of talking about the matter?"—as they disappeared out of the shop.
Polly and Alexia, therefore, had to wait for all this confusion and excitement to clear away, before the green floss could be bought and the message from Miss Rhys as to the patterns could be given. Meanwhile, Polly was tying up the package of sugar, and patting the shrunken paper bag into shape over the hole.
"You tell your aunt," said Miss Angell, her cheeks quite flushed with elation over her good bargain, "that I haven't any more patterns come in since she was here. Yes, Mrs. Alexander"—to that lady, with her head over a drawer, deep in a hunt for more bargains-"there are some exquisite designs among those. There's the floss"—bunching it up hurriedly into a wad, and speaking all in one breath. "Would you mind, Miss Alexia, doing this up yourself?"—pointing to the white tissue paper on the table.