“Mrs Beaumont!” repeated Cornelia, loudly, with a gracious, sidelong observance, at which unusual manner of receiving an introduction both ladies stared in surprise.
Presently Mrs Beaumont recovered herself sufficiently to put an all-important question.
“How do you like England?”
“I think it’s lovely,” said Cornelia.
In the fishmonger’s shop Mrs Rhodes and Mrs Muir came up in their turn, and opened wide eyes of surprise as the strange girl again repeated their names in her high monotone. Evidently this was an American custom. Strange people, the Americans! The ladies simpered, and put the inevitable query: “How do you like England?”
“I think it’s sweet,” said Cornelia.
The draper’s shop was a revelation of old-world methods. One anaemic-looking assistant endeavoured to attend to three counters and half a dozen customers, with an unruffled calm which they vainly strove to emulate. Miss Briskett produced a pattern of grey ribbon which she wished to match. Four different boxes were lifted down from the wall, and their contents ransacked in vain, while the patient waiters received small sops in the shape of cases and trays, shoved along to their corner of the counter. When persuasion failed to convince Miss Briskett that an elephant grey exactly matched her silvery fragment—“I’ll see if we have it in stock!” cried the damsel, hopefully, and promptly disappeared into space. The minutes passed by; Cornelia frowned and fidgeted, was introduced to a fourth dame, and declared that England was “’cute.” Weary waiters for flannel and small-wares looked at their watches, and fidgeted restlessly, but no one rebelled, nor showed any inclination to walk out of the shop in disgust. At length the assistant reappeared, flushed and panting, to regret that they were “sold out,” and “What is your next pleasure, madam?”
Madam’s next pleasure was a skein of wool, which investigation again failed to produce. “But we have a very nice line in kid gloves; can I show you something in that line this morning?” Miss Briskett refused to be tempted, and produced a coin from her purse in payment of a small account. Cornelia was interested to be introduced to “hef-a-crown,” and tried to calculate what would be left after the subtraction of a mysterious “seven-three.” She had abundant time to calculate, for, to the suspicious mind, it might really appear as if the assistant had emigrated to foreign climes with the half-crown as capital in hand. The little shop was dull and stuffy; an odour of flannel filled the air; the faces of the patient waiters were colourless and depressed. Cornelia flounced on her seat, and curled her beautiful lips.
“My stars and stripes!” she cried aloud. “I’ll take root if I sit here much longer. Seems as that change won’t be ready till the last trump!”
She sprang from her chair as she spoke, too much absorbed in her own impatience to note the petrifaction of horror on the faces of the waiters at the counter, and in the doorway came face to face with a plump, dignified little lady, accompanied by a girl in navy blue.