The first shirt Mrs. Scott lost her heart to was sold, and the next. And the socks? Yes, sold!
Then Diana went round to all the stall-holders and assured them she had bought nothing—they might keep the money, but the things must be sold again. “Let me have afterwards what Mrs. Scott doesn’t want,” she said. Mrs. Scott thanked Diana for coming, said she remembered her so well, at the—whose ball, was it? She told her Ralph St. Jermyn was coming to stay with them. “But I must do my duty. Have you found anything to buy? It is so kind of you. There will be lots for us all.” And she went on her way buying all the things Diana had already bought. It was a very good way of selling from the stall-holders’ point of view, and they had never made so much before at any sale in Loch Bossie, and in Scotland they make more by bazaars than in any other country in the world.
Diana made her escape so soon as she could, greatly to the disappointment of some of the Scott party, and she vowed to Uncle Marcus she would never go to another sale so long as she lived. He asked her at what time she had gone, and she said at three o’clock—why?
He said he had only wondered because the Sale was to be opened at half-past three by Mrs. Scott.
“She must never know,” said Diana.
“Never!” agreed Uncle Marcus, and he put out his hand for the change (there are very few men who don’t ask for change) and he did not express that pleasure he ought to have experienced when he realized how greatly the Sale had benefitted by the officiousness of his niece.
When the parcel came from the bazaar for Diana there were within it neither the socks she had promised Pillar, nor the shirts longed for by John and Sandy, but only those things Mrs. Scott and others had not been requiring.
Two egg-cosies in tartan cloth.
One piano-key-cover in dark brown serge, worked in yellow silks.
One tea-cosy crocheted in string, lined with red sateen.