It seemed long to Jessie till four o’clock sounded, though she was kept busy with the customers coming and going all day, eager to know their fate and fortune from the palmist.
But at last business hours were over, and Jessie and her employer lunched frugally, after which the madame said kindly:
“Now you may get ready for your drive with Mr. Laurier, for it is on the stroke of four o’clock.”
There was no getting ready for a girl who possessed but one gown, except to bathe her face and hands and rearrange her wealth of sunshiny tresses in the loose plait in the back, then affected by girls of her age. This done, Jessie placed on her charming head the black sailor hat madame had bought her, while she sighed to herself:
“I fear my dress is not fine enough for a drive in the park with such a grand, rich gentleman as Mr. Laurier. Perhaps his fashionable friends will laugh at me. I wonder why he cares to take me with him like this, when he could have his pick of grand, rich girls like the one that came to have her fortune told this morning!”
The bell clanged loudly, and she flew with a beating heart to the door, her cheeks glowing, her eyes shining with the tenderest love light.
She had not the slightest doubt but that it was Frank Laurier waiting outside.
She opened the door quickly, with a smile of welcome on her coral lips.
Oh, how quickly the glad smile faded when she saw instead the young man who had recommended her to this place but yesterday—the dispossess agent.
He was dressed very fine in a loud, flashy style, and smiled patronizingly at lovely Jessie, exclaiming: