Mrs. Lee was lying on the parlor sofa when her daughter entered, while near her stood a tall, hard-featured woman, who was displaying an open bundle of silks and laces, shawls and ribbons. The glittering array was spread all about the poor widow, who glanced at her eldest daughter with a mixture of hope and perplexity. Mrs. Lee was one of those women who take everything in life from a despondent point of view. She had begun her married life a fresh, pretty girl who had known very little real care or sorrow, but with no mental or spiritual force to meet even the trifling ups and downs of existence. She loved her children dearly, but in them she saw only so many additional causes for worry. When her husband died she had turned almost instinctively to Mildred as a sort of guide and counsellor, and the young girl had grown accustomed to be the controlling influence at home.
"My darling," Mrs. Lee exclaimed, as Mildred came up to her side, "do explain to this—lady that I don't want any of her things. Indeed, madam, we can't buy any of them;" and Mrs. Lee turned her face rather fretfully from her troublesome visitor.
Mildred gave the peddler a grave look of rebuke, but she said, civilly enough: "Please bring your things into the next room; I will talk to you there. My mother is not well enough to be disturbed."
The woman had very quickly measured Mildred's power. Moreover, she fancied she detected in the slim, pretty young girl a more promising customer than the wearied, faded lady on the sofa; so she was by no means unwilling to gather up her things and follow Mildred into the little room which served as dining and school room, where her mother's piano, the children's books, and her own sewing-machine were kept.
"Now, miss," began the woman at once, shaking out some of her most brilliant wares, "do just have a look—not to buy unless it suits ye, but just to see what's pretty. Now here's just the thing would do you for your life—a gray silk you couldn't match in all Milltown; and cheap—as cheap—"
"No, thank you," said Mildred, coldly, turning away from the dazzling offer. "I shall be so glad if you'll put up your things. I'm tired, and the children want their tea."
"Well, well," said the woman, with a coarse affectation of good-humor, "it'll take me a minute or two; but first just cast your eye over that bit of silk—gray's your color; you're just pink and white and soft enough for it, and it's only thirty dollars for twenty yards—enough to make a dress now, and a jacket next spring. And I'll tell you how I manage with young ladies like you: I take easy pay—weekly installments, don't you see? But law! it's so little at a time—only fifty cents a week—keeps me waiting more'n a year; and you may say you get a year's wear out of your dress for nothing."
"I am very sorry," said Milly, still persistent; "I do not want the dress. I must take off my things. I am just up from the store."
"The store!" echoed the woman, eying her sharply. "Mr. Hardman's, I suppose? Yes, you're just the kind of pretty, genteel young figure they like to get. Now I dare say you are in the mantle department."
