we lose this one we shall have to wait for the next."

Few establishments were open in Praed Street, shutters were up at the
numerous second-hand shops, and at the hour of three o'clock p.m. the
thirst for journals at E. G. Mills's (Established 1875) was satisfied;
the appetite for cigars, cigarettes, and tobacco had scarcely begun.
Now and again a couple of boys, who had been reading stories of wild
adventure in the Rocky Mountains, dashed across the road, upset one of
Mrs. Mills's placard boards, and flew in opposite directions, feeling
that although they might not have equalled the daring exploits of their
heroes in fiction, they had gone as far as was possible in a country
hampered by civilization.

"Young rascals!" said Mrs. Mills, coming back after repairing one of
these outrages. The shop had a soft, pleasing scent of tobacco from
the brown jars, marked in gilded letters "Bird's Eye" and "Shag" and
"Cavendish," together with the acrid perfume of printer's ink. "Still,
I suppose we were all young once. Gertie," raising her voice, "isn't
it about time you popped upstairs to make yourself good-looking?
There's no cake in the house, and that always means some one looks in
unexpectedly to tea."

No answer.

"Gertie! Don't you hear me when I'm speaking to you?"

"Beg pardon, aunt. I was thinking of something else."

"You think too much of something else, my dear," said Mrs. Mills
persuasively. "I was saying to a customer, only yesterday, that you
don't seem able lately to throw off your work when you've finished.
You keep on threshing it out in your mind. And it's all very well, to
a certain extent, but there's a medium in all things." Mrs. Mills went
to the half-open door, that was curtained only in regard to the lower
portion. "Trimming a hat," she cried protestingly. "Oh, my dear, and
to think your mother was a Wesleyan Methodist. Before she came to
London, I mean."

Her niece surveyed the work at arm's length. "I've done all I want to
do to it," she said.

Mrs. Mills ordered the hat to be put on that she might ascertain
whether it suited, and this done, and guarded approval given, asked to
be allowed to try it on her own head. Here, again, the results,
inspected in the large mirror set in a narrow wooden frame above the
mantelpiece, gained commendation; Mrs. Mills declared she would feel
inclined to purchase a similar hat, only that Praed Street might say
she was looking for a second husband