! What could be sweeter? It
would look perfect against your walls! Shall I make it up safely in a
box? We have a special parcels department."

"Not to-day, thank you," said the owner of the blue drawing-room. "I'll
think of it," said the owner of the pink. The silent third asked
tentatively: "Could you make it five?"

The next group were more hopeless still. They didn't like Della Robbia.
Common, they called it, that bright yellow and blue. Pixie was
informed that if she offered the plaque for nothing it would be
declined. She carried it dejectedly back to the stall, piled a tray
with marmalade jars, gave it to Stanor to carry, and started off on
another promenade.

"Marmalade jars! Fine marmalade jars! Who will buy my marmalade jars?"
chanted the young man loudly, and the audience giggled, and listened
with indulgent looks, even went so far as to finger the jars themselves,
admire the design, and marvel how they could have been made for the
price, but not a single one of the number had a vacancy for such an
article in the home. Even when Stanor suggested that the jars were not
dedicated to marmalade alone, but might be used for jam, for honey, for
syrup, the supply seemed ridiculously out of proportion to the demand,
and half an hour's exercise of his own pleading, seconded by Pixie's
beguilements, brought in a total result of three shillings, which, to
say the least of it, seemed inadequate.

"At this rate," said Esmeralda, "we shall have a van-load to take home!"
Honor, seated dejectedly on an inverted packing-chest, discoursed in a
thin, monotonous tone on the glories of charity sales in the States.
They were always crowded, it appeared; policemen stood at the doors to
prevent a crush; the buying was in the nature of a competition. Young
girls offering wares for sale found themselves surrounded by throngs of
millionaires, bidding against each other for the privilege of obtaining
any article which she was pleased to offer. Having accomplished a
purchase, it became the overwhelming desire of the purchaser to present
the article in question as a votive offering to the fair sales-woman
herself. ... Such a recital was hardly calculative to enliven the
occasion. Esmeralda frowned, and Pixie sighed, and for the first time
in her existence doubted the entire superiority of being born a Briton.
She remembered her rebuffs with the Della Robbia plaque and thought
wistfully of those millionaires!

The conc