Miss Milligan
herself would never mention it to a soul. She felt quite sure of that,
still--as it did not appear how the little plot could be spread abroad
under those circumstances unless the lay-figure in the corner should
become communicative, Mrs. Coombe's sentence remained plaintively
unfinished. Miss Milligan, in spite of its being so very unnecessary,
found herself promising solemnly never to mention it.

As the whole thing was entirely unpremeditated it seemed like a special
piece of good luck that Mrs. Coombe should have at that moment in her
pocket a note to the druggists (who were not called druggists, exactly)
and that all she needed to do was to add Miss Milligan's address, and
hand to that lady sufficient money to secure a postal note as an
enclosure. She did this very quickly and the whole little affair was
satisfactorily disposed of when Esther was seen coming hurriedly down
the street.

"I thought," said Esther, who entered a little out of breath and with a
worried pucker between her eyes, "I thought that I would just run in and
see how the linings look."

"You can never tell anything from linings," said Miss Milligan in an
injured tone. "Gracious! I don't suppose any one would ever want a dress
if they went by the way the linings look. I always advise my customers
never to look in the glass until I get to the material, what with seams
on the wrong side and all!"

"There is really nothing at all to see as yet," assented Mrs. Coombe
crossly.

Esther seated herself by the open window.

"Very well," she said quietly. "I won't look. I'll just wait."

Mrs. Coombe shrugged her shoulders and displaced a pin or two. There was
an injured look upon her face and Miss Milligan, replacing the pins,
wondered how it is that nice girls like Esther Coombe never see when
they're not wanted.

The fitting went quickly forward. Mrs. Coombe seemed to have lost all
her genial expansiveness. Miss Milligan's pins had overflowed from her
pin-cushion into her mouth and Esther, who appeared tired, gazed
steadily out of the window. Only the humming of the machines in the
adjoining workroom and the subdued talk and laughter of Miss Milligan's
young ladies saved the silence from becoming oppressive. Occasionally,
when her supply of pins became exhausted, Miss Milligan would
contribute a cooing murmur to the effect that it did "set beautiful
across the shoulders" or that "the long line over the hip was
quite elegant."

Wi