"Be sure to show them the baby in the wood."
"Why that one?" he questioned. "You admit it isn't the best."
"Perhaps, but neither are they the best connoisseurs. You'll see." She nodded wisely at him.
"The oracle has spoken--I will obey," he called from the door, kissing his fingers to her. She ventured an answering gesture, knowing the room empty save for waiters. She was almost as unselfconscious as he, but had her nation's shrinking from any public expression of emotion.
Hardly had he gone when the faithful Miss Mason arrived, her mild eyes almost youthful with enthusiasm. Prom a black satin reticule of dimensions beyond all proportion to her meager self she drew a list of names on which she discoursed volubly while Mary finished her breakfast.
"You'll get most everything at this first place," she said. "It's pretty near the biggest department store in the city, and only two blocks from here--ain't that convenient? You can deal there right along for everything in the way of dry goods."
Mary had no conception of what either a department store or dry goods might be, but determined not to confound her mentor by a display of such ignorance.
"Seemed to me, though, you might get some things second hand, so I got a list of likely places from my sister, who's lived in New York longer'n I have. I thought mebbe--" her tone was tactful--"you didn't want to waste your money any?"
Mary was impressed again, as she had been before her wedding, by the natural good manners of this simple and half educated woman. "Why is it," she wondered to herself, "that one would not dream of knowing people of her class at home, but rather likes them here?" She did not realize as yet that for Miss Mason no classes existed, and that consequently she was as much at ease with Mary, whose mother had been "county," as she would be with her own colored "help."
"You guessed quite rightly, Miss Mason," Mary smiled. "I want to spend as little as possible, and shall depend on you to prevent my making mistakes."
"I reckon I know all there is t' know 'bout economy," nodded Miss Mason, and, as if by way of illustration, drew from her bag a pair of cotton gloves, for which she exchanged her kid ones, rolling these carefully away. "They get real mussed shopping," she explained.