“I—I need one,” said Florence.
“That’s not all the reason.”
“No—not—not all,” Florence hesitated, then told her frankly of the surprise she had planned for herself.
The woman’s face became almost motherly as she finished.
“I’ll tell you what to do,” she whispered. “There are just five bags to be sold in the next lot. You won’t want the first one. She—the woman who owned it, died.”
“Oh, no,” Florence whispered.
“You won’t get the second nor the third. That long bearded Jew, and the slim, dark man standing by the post, will run them high if they have to. They know something about them.”
“How—how—”
“How did they find out? I don’t know, but they did. The last two bags are quite good ones, good as you would purchase new for fifteen or twenty dollars, and I shouldn’t wonder,” she winked an eye ever so slightly, “I shouldn’t wonder a bit if there’d be a real surprise in one of them for you. There now, dearie,” she smiled, “run over and look at them, over there beside the green trunk. And don’t whisper a word of what I have told you.
“The one nearest the block will be sold first, and the others just as they come,” she added as the girl rose to go.