“Now when the customer says she does not think the hat will do—she is afraid it does not suit her—and you have seen that it is the hat she is hankering after, say quite casually, ‘I’m sorry, madam, you don’t like it,’ and put it on your own head. Move about the room in it, and let her see how charming it is. In a few moments she will have forgotten how she herself looked in it, and will fondly imagine that she will look like you, and the hat is sold.”
Ada’s face had fallen.
“Will you do it?” Madame Maude said. “It will be money easily earned; my saleswoman is leaving next week.”
“I am to make money by my face,” Ada cried, with a choking voice; “it’s so horrible.” But something was saying to her, “You must have money; you have spent your last dollar, except what will pay for your bare board. The children must go to school, and Sadie wants a tonic. She has a cough because she has been denied the luxuries she has been used to, and has had to walk to school in all sorts of weather.”
“Yes, I will come,” she said; “but what if I do not sell them as you expect?”
“I will risk that,” the woman said kindly, “for I know the value of a pretty face below a forty-dollar hat.”
When Ada found herself once again on Fifth Avenue, she could scarcely believe she was the same girl who had lived in the magnificent mansion at the other end of the town a few months ago, and had spent all her days in light-hearted amusement. She felt tired and depressed, and afraid of the position she had undertaken to fill.
When she reached home she found that Sadie and Marjorie had not yet come back from school. She was anxious about their delay, and stood on the doorstep looking up the street to try and catch a sight of them.
“Why do you fret yourself about those two children, bless your dear heart. They’re a deal better able to look after themselves than you are.”