Ada bent her head in answer. She was willing to sweep the floors if she had been asked. She had spent her last dollar, and the washing-bill was not paid for last week, and Sadie had started a bad cough which demanded a tonic, and tonics have to be paid for.
“If you will come here and act as saleswoman,” Madame Maude said, “I will pay you well.”
“Oh, how kind of you!” the girl cried. “Of course I can’t be offended.” It was such a nice, quiet little shop, quite a private house; there was nothing to shock her in the suggestion.
“Stop a bit,” Madame Maude said, “till you hear what that means. I won’t pay you fifteen dollars a week for merely handing a customer a hat, and telling her the price—you’ve got to make her buy it.”
“How can I?” Ada said, in a mystified voice.
“I’ll tell you,” Madame Maude explained; and she took a lovely hat from a drawer, and put it on her own head. Her face was broad and homely, and the hat did not suit her either well or badly.
“Look at me in this hat,” she said, “and imagine I am the customer.”
Ada looked.
“Now look at yourself in it,” and she placed the hat on Ada’s head of shining hair.
Ada smiled, a half-pleased, half-bashful smile.