r of a "proper"
amusement when they had a holiday: they had been searching for one now
both long and carefully.

She sauntered on.

According to Georgina, there was still nice time before the evening
traffic to the place of amusement began, and they spent it in diverse
walks in the roads, though never so far that they could not keep an eye
on the steamers and be standing in good time among the crowd that was
thronging the pier.

Tired, cross and footsore, they at last reached home late in the
evening, where Silla, in the middle of the account she was giving her
mother of all the places they had been to, fell asleep in her chair.

The music was running in her head, and she dreamt she was at a ball.

* * * * *

There was a pleasant crackling in the stove at Barbara's in the chilly
autumn days, when people who could not afford it so well were loth to
begin fires.

It was, therefore, very comfortable to stand about at her counter
talking, and still more so for the chosen few who were fortunate enough
to be invited to partake of a cup of coffee.

But of late Barbara had not been nearly so even-tempered as formerly.
She suffered from changeableness of spirits, was sometimes unnaturally
stingy, so that it looked as if she wanted to count the groats or the
coffee-beans, at other times in a different mood, open-handed and
liberal to both guests and customers.

Whatever the reason might be, it was certain that now and then in quiet
moments she would fall into a brown study. The bill for sugar, meal,
flour and coffee had come in again.

The till was anything but prepared for such an achievement; it groaned
and rattled whatever time in the day she pulled it out or pushed it in.

Time, however, went on inexorably, notwithstanding that the stove roared
so cheerfully as if nothing were the matter.

And it had now gone so far that the day after to-morrow was the day for
payment.

Barbara was in a--for her--most unnatural state of excitement. In the
hope of obtaining a very last, further postponement, she had this
afternoon carried out her long contemplated attack on the salesman down
in his office, but had met with a decided refusal. If she did not pay
now, after all she had promised, then--well, then, after the answer she
received, it looked as if the wheel would suddenly come to a standstill.

It was this that Barbara, going feverishly in and out, with her best
bonnet still loosely tie