"No, no! I'll pay for it, and take it with me." She counted out her little roll of bills, trying not to notice the pitiable way in which her purse shrank in, like the cheeks of a hungry man.
"Is there nothing you would like for yourself, madam?" murmured the voice of the temptress. "Here is some ravishing charmeuse—the true ashes-of-roses. With your dark hair and eyes——"
"Oh, no—no, thanks." Nancy clutched Alma, and turned her head away from the shimmering, pearl-tinted fabric. For all her stiff level-headedness, she was only human, and a girl with a healthy, ardent longing for beautiful finery; prudent she was, but prudence soon reaches its limits when the pressure of feminine vanity and exquisite luxury is brought to bear upon it. There was only one course of resistance. Nancy fled.
"Now, slippers." Alma skipped along beside her, hugging her precious bundles, with shining eyes, and cheeks aglow. "I think I love slippers better than anything in the world. Nancy, you're a perfect lamb."
They tried on slippers. Certainly Alma's tiny foot and slender ankle was a delightful object to contemplate as she turned it this way and that before the little mirror.
"If you had a little buckle, miss—we have some very new rhinestone ornaments—I'd like to show you one—a butterfly set in a fan of silver lace. Just a moment."
Before Nancy could stop her the saleswoman had gone.
"We won't get the buckles, you dear old thing," Alma said consolingly, bending the sole of her foot. "We'll just look at them."
Nancy smiled wryly.
"I'd like to get you everything in the shop—I hate to be stingy with you, dear; it's just this old thing," and she held up the shabby purse.