She was accustomed to customers who asked the prices of a dozen dresses in succession, and then floated away declaring that they would “think it over,” never, as she knew well, to return again; but not one in a thousand was honest enough to make a confession of poverty! She lived in an atmosphere of vanity and affectation, and put on her haughty manners every morning with her black satin dress; but at night she was only a poor, tired, working woman, going home to a dingy lodging, and dividing her earnings with an invalid mother and a family of struggling brothers and sisters. Her heart went out to this other girl who was so evidently a lady despite her poverty, and when Bridgie mentioned a ludicrously small sum as the limit to which she was prepared to go, she showed neither surprise nor the thinly-veiled contempt which is usual under the circumstances, but volunteered some really useful information in its place.
“You will not be able to buy any ready-made costume for that price, madam, but there will be a special sale of dress materials on Tuesday next. If you could be here quite early in the morning, and go straight to the counter under the clock, you would find some wonderful bargains. I should advise you to leave it until then, but perhaps there is some other department to which I could direct you.”
“Thank you, I’m dreadfully tired. Could we go somewhere, and have a cup of tea?”
The way was pointed out, and the sisters mounted the stairs once more, took possession of a little table in a corner, and leant back wearily in their chairs. The room was crowded like the others, but it was comparatively quiet, for the ladies were resting after the fray, stifling surreptitious yawns, and sipping tea with languid enjoyment.
It was a long time before Bridgie could find anyone to attend to her wants, and meantime the temptation of the parcels lying before her was too great to be resisted. “I really must look at those gloves and the lace ties that are wrapped up with them! I never had so many new pairs in my life, but they were so cheap that I hadn’t the heart to leave them. ’Twill be a refreshment to gloat over them until the tea comes!” She untied the string and complacently folded back the paper, but, alas! what was then revealed was the reverse of refreshing, for, in some mysterious manner, the gloves and laces had disappeared, and in their place lay a fragment of dull, prosaic flannel, at which the poor bargain-hunter stared with dilated eyes.
“F–flannel!” she gasped. “Flannel! It was gloves when it was made up. What’s the matter with it—is it witchcraft?”
“I’d call it stupidity, if you asked my opinion,” said Pixie calmly. “You’ve stolen a poor creature’s parcel, and perhaps she wanted to make a poultice with it. It will be awful for her when she goes home, and her husband groaning in agony, and nothing to relieve him but two lace ties! I pity her when she finds it out.”
“She has stolen my gloves. I’m not sorry for her at all, and if she is an honest woman she will bring them back at once and hand them in to the office. I shall take the wretched flannel there the moment we go downstairs, but I’ve a conviction that I’ll never see my parcel again. I suppose they got changed at one of those crowded counters. I don’t think I care for sales very much, Pixie; they are too expensive. We will go straight home after we have had tea.”
“We will so, and make haste about it. I wanted specially to be back by four o’clock.”
To Bridgie’s surprise, however, ten minutes before the omnibus reached the corner at which they were wont to alight, Pixie beckoned to the conductor to stop, and announced her intention of walking the rest of the way. There was no time to discuss the point, and as she herself was too tired to walk a step farther than she was obliged, she sat still and watched the little figure affectionately until the omnibus rounded a corner and it was hidden from sight.