“But I can’t afford to lose my job, Miss Frink,” said the girl with soft eagerness. “They would never let me go for an hour a day, and my grandfather has just a small pension; we have to be very careful.”
That voice. That wholesome face. That delicately clean shining hair. Miss Frink smiled a little at the ingenuous lack of consciousness of the power of money.
“That would be my care,” she said. “Think it over.”
“Oh, of course, I should like it,” said Millicent, still with eagerness, “if it was right for me. It would give me so much more time with Grandpa. But there is Damaris! I can’t bear to think of hurting her feelings.”
“Stuff and nonsense,” said Miss Frink. “Business is business. You’ll hear from me again.”
A boy was called to carry the box and the purchaser departed leaving Millicent flushed, and happy, and apprehensive.
As Miss Frink was leaving the store the floorwalker intercepted her. He had in his hands a letter.
“I wonder if you can throw any light on this, Miss Frink. A letter that came several days ago to Mr. Hugh Stanwood in care of the store. We have no employee of that—”
“No, but you will have,” interrupted Miss Frink, almost snatching the letter. “Hugh Stanwood is the man who hindered the rendezvous my horses were trying to keep with that express train a few weeks ago.”
“You don’t say so. The young hero who put us all under such obligation?”
“Me, anyway. I’m in no hurry to play the harp. Yes, he was on his way to Ross Graham’s when he stubbed his toe, poor boy.”
Mr. Ramsay bowed. “I’ve heard that you are caring for him royally. I’m sure we shall be very glad to welcome him into our ranks if it is your wish.”
“Well, we’ll let him catch his breath first, anyway. He’s doing well and, believe me, I couldn’t sleep nights if he wasn’t. I’ve just been getting him a dressing-gown; you don’t sell dressing-gowns for your health here, do you?”
The floorwalker smiled deferentially. “Do you find us exorbitant?”
“Do I! I’ll have to pay for this on the installment plan.”
“Ha, ha! Very good. Very good, indeed. Glad we had something that pleased you. Good-afternoon, Miss Frink.”
On the way home the lady gazed at the letter she was carrying.
“John Ogden has beat me to it,” she reflected. At certain moments the lady of the old school found a relief to her feelings in slang. “Saber cuts of Saxon speech,” Mark Twain called it, and Miss Frink liked saber cuts. She hadn’t time to beat about the bush.