ws that met over her
nose and this, with the thick spectacles she wore, gave her a very stern
expression.

"What's the matter with that bell, Ida?" she demanded, in a sharp voice.
"It seems to ring enough, but it doesn't ring any money into my
cash-drawer as I can see."

"I sold my over-blouse out of the window, Mrs. Staples," said the girl.

"Humph! What else?"

"Er--what else? Why--why, she said she might come back for the one I am
making."

"Humph!" ejaculated Mrs. Staples a second time. "I don't see as that will
fill my cellar with coal. Couldn't you sell her anything else out of the
shop?"

"She didn't say she wanted anything else," said Ida timidly.

"Oh! She didn't? You'll never make a sales-woman till you learn to sell
'em things they don't want but that the shop wants to sell. And I was
foolish enough to tell you that you could have all you could make out of
those blouses. Oh, well! I'm always being foolishly generous. Come! What's
that on the floor? Pick it up."

Mrs. Staples was very near-sighted, yet nothing seemed to escape her
observation. She pointed to the twist of white tissue paper on the floor
which had been twitched out of Betty Gordon's bag. Ida stooped as she was
commanded and got the paper. She was about to toss it into the
waste-basket behind the counter when she realized that there was some hard
object wrapped in the paper.

"What is it?" asked Mrs. Staples, in her quick, stern way, as she saw Ida
open the twist of paper.

"Why, I--Oh, Mrs. Staples! look what this is, will you?"

She held out in the palm of her hand a little, heart-shaped platinum
locket with a tiny but very beautiful diamond set in the center of its
face, and when she turned it over on the back was engraved the intertwined
letters "E.G."

"For the land's sake!" ejaculated Mrs. Staples, coming nearer and grabbing
the locket out of Ida's hand. "Where did you get this?"

"Why, Mrs. Staples, you saw me pick it up."

"But how did it come there?"

"Oh, I know!" Ida Bellethorne cried, with sudden animation. "That girl
stood right there. She opened her bag to get out her purse and she must
have flirted it out to the floor."

"Humph!" said the storekeeper doubtfully.

"Give it to me, Mrs. Staples, and I'll run after her," cried the English
girl anxiously.

"Humph!" This was Mrs. Staples' stock ejaculation and expressed a variety
of emotions. Just now it expressed doubt. "And then you'd come back and
tell me how