"Oh, oh! how beautiful! Stop"--laying her large
hand on one. "Just what I want. How much is it?"
"Fifteen dollars," said Miss Angell, whipping it neatly out of the box, her
dismal frown becoming an expansive smile. "Yes, it is a beauty--one of the
very latest things," and she spread it forth on the lounge with an
experienced little nourish.
Miss Ellicott deserted the door and hurried over to the lounge.
"I'll--I'll"--as she tried to work herself in between. But the portly Mrs.
Alexander had no idea of being interrupted at such an important crisis in
life when centerpieces were to be decided upon, so she loudly kept on in
her bargaining. "I'll take it," she said, in her most decided fashion. "And
the next one, too, I fancy; let me see that."
"But that is," gasped Miss Juliana, "threading her way into the group," the
very one that I liked."
"Eh?" said Mrs. Alexander, looking up with the acute eyes of a
bargain-hunter. "Oh, I don't wonder you like it; it's a beauty. Yes, I'll
take it also. How much did you say it was, Miss Angell?"
Miss Angell, who hadn't said, saw no reason why she shouldn't now make it
any price that appealed to her better judgment.
"Twenty dollars," she answered, clapping on a cool third of its price, and
Mrs. Alexander, who cared very little what she paid for it, beamed at her,
and said:
"Put them in a box and send it out to my carriage; they are the handsomest
things I've seen for a long time, and so wonderfully cheap! You are quite
right; they are beauties.
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