"Thank you, Cousin John, I don't drink champagne. Well, now, what can I do for you this afternoon?"
"I don't know, my dear. We neither of us know much about London, and we just wander about, for the most part, or drive about, and wonder where we are."
The girl jumped up. "Order a carriage and pair instantly. I shall drive you round and show you the best shops. You are sure to want something. As for me, remember that I want nothing. An actress appears in costume which the management finds. You, however, Alice, are different. You must dress as becomes your position."
"My dear child," said Alice, in the very first shop, "you must let me give you a dress—you really must."
"I don't want it, I assure you," she laughed. "But if it pains you not to give me one, why, I will take it."
She did take it. That evening there arrived at the boarding-house, addressed to Miss Pennefather, first a bonnet, for which five guineas would be cheap; a dress, the price of which the male observer could not even guess; a box of kid gloves, a mantle, and two or three pairs of boots.
"And, oh," said the girl, when she left the hotel that night, "what a lovely thing it is to feel that there will be no horrid mercenary considerations between us! You will admire my Art, but I shall not envy your money. Cousin John, admit that I am better off than you—one would rather be admired than envied."
She reached home. In her room lay the parcels and the packages. She opened them all. She put on the bonnet, she stroked the soft stuff with a caressing palm, she gazed upon the gloves, she held up the boots to the light.
"Am I a dreadful humbug?" she said. "I must be—I must be. What would Dick say? But one cannot—— No, one cannot refuse. I am not a stick or a stone. And Cousin Alice actually enjoyed the giving! But no money. Molly, you must not take their money."