ely. "I
will have the nightcap with the Valenciennes frill, if you please."

Hildegarde sent her little trunk off by the expressman, and after
bidding good-bye to Hobson, who begged her most earnestly to come again
soon, started off for her final shopping-bout. She had some idea of
lunching at Purcell's, and taking an afternoon train for home. There
were still several things to be attended to, and she might--it was not
very far from Blank & Blank's--she might be able to run round and see if
Rose Flower were at home. It was doubtful, for she had been away most of
the fall, but there was always a chance of her having returned. The dear
Rose! How good it would be to see her, and Doctor Flower, and, perhaps,
Bubble!

It was eleven o'clock before she reached Blank & Blank's, and the vast
shop was filled with a surging crowd of women, young and old, smart and
dowdy, rich and poor. Here and there a lone man was seen, standing
bewildered, with a sample in his hand of something that he was to match;
here and there, too, stood the floor-walkers, in calm and conscious
dignity, the heroes of the shopping-world; but these were only
occasional flecks on the frothing tide of womanhood. Hildegarde, after
several vain attempts, succeeded in reaching the counter she sought.
Before it stood a row of women, elbow to elbow, each bent on her own
quest; behind it were the shop-women, endeavouring to satisfy all
demands at one and the same moment.

Endeavouring, most of them, that is; but even the shop-woman, tried as
she is in the furnace, is not always pure gold. The young woman who
stood near Hildegarde may have been too tired, or may have been ill; she
certainly was rude. Hildegarde had taken her stand directly behind a
plainly dressed, elderly woman, shrewdly judging that she would be
likely to make some definite purchase and then depart, instead of
fingering half the goods on the counter, as many of the customers were
doing. The elderly woman was evidently in haste. She held up the black
cashmere that she had been examining, and said, civilly, "Will you
please tell me the price of this?" The question was repeated several
times; the shop-woman, after one glance at the quiet, unstylish figure,
turned her shoulder, and began to press some goods volubly on a
departing shopper.

"Please!" said the quiet woman again. "I am in haste, and want to buy
some of this. Will you please tell me the price?"

"You'll have to wait your turn, lady!"