"Please may I just look in your cellar for a minute?" began Madge very politely, as she entered the shop. "I am very sorry to trouble you, but I won't be long."
"What did you say you wanted, miss?" inquired the old woman, thinking that she had not heard correctly what Madge asked for. "You must excuse me, miss," she went on, "for ever since I had the influenza last winter my hearing has not been what it was before. It's very awkward in the shop, as you may think. Many days I get one of my grand-children, a little girl about your age, to come and help me, but this week she has gone off to visit an aunt in London. Of course that was a great treat for her, so I couldn't think of interfering with it, and I am trying to do the best I can alone."
Another time Madge would have been much interested in hearing all about the little girl who helped her grandmother to keep shop; but now she was in a great hurry to get her money back before Miss Thompson came to look for her, so directly the old woman stopped speaking she began a more detailed explanation of what she wanted, in a particularly clear voice.
"If it was only my own money I wouldn't interrupt you to look for it," she said, "although it is five shillings and sevenpence. But it belongs to the others as well, and, of course, they are expecting me to choose all sorts of nice things in the shops. They will be so disappointed if I don't get it back in time to buy something before we have to start home. It seemed so safe in a brown money-bag, you know; at least it was really Betty's shoe-bag, only she took them out and put them in her drawer. I don't think Nurse knew she had done it. But what I wanted to tell you was, that I believe I can find it in a minute if you will only let me run down to your cellar."
It is to be feared that the old woman understood even less than she heard of this long speech. One sentence, however, reached her ears, and to this she replied.
"I haven't any cellar, miss," she said.
"But—but—" Madge did not dare contradict her flatly. Yet there was the grating in the pavement outside. "Please come to the door a minute," she cried, "and I will show you what I mean, Mrs— Oh, I am so sorry! I don't know your name!"
"My name is Mrs. Winter, and I've kept this shop ever since I became a widow thirty years ago," said the old woman. Then pitying Madge's blushes she continued: "It doesn't matter about not knowing my name, miss. Don't give it another thought. Mrs. Winter is my name, as I said, and it is certainly written above the door, but perhaps you didn't notice it."
"No, I didn't look there! That was very stupid indeed of me!" exclaimed Madge, who had been rather afraid that the old woman might be vexed at her name not being better known. "But I shall remember that you are Mrs. Winter always now," she added. "And now please let me show you where the brown bag dropped."
"Ah, down there was it?" said Mrs. Winter, coming to the door. "You will have a troublesome job to get in there, I am afraid. That cellar belongs to the large house next door that's empty. The whole place is shut up, and the man who keeps the key lives at the other side of the town."