“Certainly not. I have done nothing to admit of any question of payment,” replied Anderson, curtly.
“Well, I s'pose you throw it in along with the butter and eggs,” said Madame Griggs, with a return of her slight coquetry. “By-the-way, I wish you'd send over five pounds of that best butter. Good-afternoon.”
“Good-afternoon.”
The dressmaker turned in the doorway and looked back. “I'm so glad to have my mind settled about it,” she said, with a pathos which overcame her absurdity and vulgarity. “I do work awful hard, and it doesn't seem as if I could lose my money.” She appeared suddenly tragic in her cheap muslin and her frizzes. She looked old and her features sharpened out rigidly.
Anderson, looking after her, felt both bewilderment and compunction. He thought for a moment of going after her and saying something further; then he heard a flutter and a quick sweet voice, and he knew that Charlotte had come for her hat. He heard her say: “Where? Oh, I see; all covered up so nicely. Thank you. I did not come before, because the trees were dripping. Thank you.” Then there was a silence.
Anderson got his hat and went out through the store. The old clerk was fussing over some packages on the counter.
“That young lady came for her hat,” he remarked.
“Did she?”
“Yes. She's a pretty-spoken girl. Her sister's goin' to git married before long, I hear.”
Anderson stopped and stared at him. “No; this is the one.”