MILDRED'S TEMPTATION—Drawn by Jessie Curtis Shepherd.
"Some part of the day," said Milly, shortly. The woman was busy tying up her parcel, folding the gray silk so that its sheen caught Milly's eye perpetually. It was a pretty silk, the young girl thought. Oh, why couldn't she have just such a dress to wear at Miss Jenner's party, instead of her old, often-washed white muslin! But Milly resolutely shut such a wild ambition out of her mind, and tried to look uninterested while the woman continued:
"Why, you must be earning at least five or six dollars a week down to Hardman's. He's good pay, I know. Fifty cents wouldn't be much. Well, well," she added, turning the pretty silk back and forth in shining ripples, "I'll find an easy sale for this anywheres: only I must say, as a friend, you're making a mistake."
A half-pang of regret shot through Milly's mind as the woman tied up the last article in her parcel, and the gray silk disappeared from view. During the busy occupations of the evening her mind kept recurring to the peddler's visit and her tempting offer. Before she went to bed she had made a rapid calculation of how long it would take her to save the required sum out of her earnings. It took nearly all she and her mother could earn to feed the four hungry little mouths as well as their own, and to keep a respectable roof over their heads.
"Still," argued Milly, "I work so hard, why shouldn't I have at least fifty cents a week for my clothes, and such a good silk, too! And to look well at Miss Jenner's!"
Visions of an impossible future, in which Miss Jenner would adopt all her little brothers and sisters, filled Mildred's mind, completely shutting out the fact that girlish vanity was at the root of her desire to possess the gray silk. Unfortunately Mildred had never been accustomed to go with her little perplexities to her mother, and so it did not now occur to her to seek any advice. Mrs. Lee was always "too tired" or too "blue" to be "bothered," and while Mildred had learned a habit of self-restraint and reserve, the younger children looked to her for every suggestion, so that Milly felt quite capable of governing her own actions when she was allowed to govern theirs. By the time the young girl awoke, she had, as she thought, reasoned herself into a belief that the most foolish mistake of her life was in letting that gray silk slip out of her possession. The sight of her limp old muslin in the wardrobe did not lessen this regret, nor did her mother's bemoaning at breakfast that "Milly would look a fright at Miss Jenner's party" help matters in the least.
"If you could only at least look like your father's daughter," sighed Mrs. Lee, "no knowing what might come of it."
Milly echoed these words over and again as she walked down to the store, varying them with her own unwise reflections. She was a little late, and received a half-sneering reprimand from "Mr. Tom" as she passed him at the desk. It was her duty to go to the mantle department, which was in a sort of L off the main part of the store. Milly, after hurriedly laying aside her things, turned toward the cloak-room. No other sales-woman was in it, but there, seated at the side, an expression of vulgar audacity on her face, was the peddler of last night!