“Yes, yes,” said Susan, impatient to be off. “Stay right here, grandmother, until I come for you.”
It took Susan much longer than she had expected to purchase the coat and underwear. She had to go to the third floor for the coat, and she found a sales clerk busy trying to please a most exacting customer, who seemed to want to examine every coat in stock before making a selection. When Susan’s turn came, she hurriedly purchased a dark blue chinchilla and then went in search of the underwear.
The afternoon shoppers were beginning to throng the floors when Susan finally made her way back to the toy department. That, thought Susan, must account for the fact that, although she had nearly reached the spot where the dolls were sold, she had not yet caught a glimpse of a little white-haired lady in an old-fashioned black dress and with a shabby black velvet bag in her hand.
“This is the very counter where I left her,” said Susan, with a puzzled frown. “She must be looking at some of the show cases near by, or perhaps she has walked a little way to look for me.”
She was beginning to feel anxious, for she knew that Grandmother Minton would not be likely to wander about the big store for herself.
Susan began to thread her way among the shoppers, scanning each one sharply. At first she was deliberate and polite, but after she had circled several times round the toy department and still had caught no glimpse of Grandmother Minton’s kind old face she became desperate and pushed her way rudely hither and thither. What had become of her grandmother? Was she wandering helplessly round with no one to pilot her? Would anyone notice that she was lost and try to help her?
Susan stopped short in her wanderings. A possibility that filled her with dread had flashed into her mind. Such things had happened to other people, she knew. Could it be that grandmother had been taken suddenly ill and been rushed to the hospital? What would father say? Was not Grandmother Minton his own mother? Had he not cautioned Susan that morning to take the best of care of her and bring her safe home to him again? Now, she would have to telephone and tell him—oh, she could not! And what would mother say? And all the Raffertys and Bensons and Manders? They worshipped Grandmother Minton!
Some one grasped Susan’s arm, and the polite voice of the floorwalker questioned her.
“What is it, miss? Have you lost your purse?”
Susan realized then that she had been wringing her hands and that tears were in her eyes.