o so without being noticed, she found herself at
last before the jeweller's great glass doors.

It was still so early that there were no purchasers in the shop, and
she felt herself the centre of innumerable unemployed eyes as she moved
forward between long lines of show-cases glittering with diamonds and
silver.

She was glancing about in the hope of finding the clock-department
without having to approach one of the impressive gentlemen who paced
the empty aisles, when she attracted the attention of one of the most
impressive of the number.

The formidable benevolence with which he enquired what he could do
for her made her almost despair of explaining herself; but she finally
disentangled from a flurry of wrong beginnings the request to be shown
to the clock-department.

The gentleman considered her thoughtfully. "May I ask what style of
clock you are looking for? Would it be for a wedding-present, or--?"

The irony of the allusion filled Ann Eliza's veins with sudden strength.
"I don't want to buy a clock at all. I want to see the head of the
department."

"Mr. Loomis?" His stare still weighed her--then he seemed to brush aside
the problem she presented as beneath his notice. "Oh, certainly. Take
the elevator to the second floor. Next aisle to the left." He waved her
down the endless perspective of show-cases.

Ann Eliza followed the line of his lordly gesture, and a swift ascent
brought her to a great hall full of the buzzing and booming of thousands
of clocks. Whichever way she looked, clocks stretched away from her in
glittering interminable vistas: clocks of all sizes and voices, from the
bell-throated giant of the hallway to the chirping dressing-table toy;
tall clocks of mahogany and brass with cathedral chimes; clocks
of bronze, glass, porcelain, of every possible size, voice and
configuration; and between their serried ranks, along the polished
floor of the aisles, moved the languid forms of other gentlemanly
floor-walkers, waiting for their duties to begin.

One of them soon approached, and Ann Eliza repeated her request. He
received it affably.

"Mr. Loomis? Go right down to the office at the other end." He pointed
to a kind of box of ground glass and highly polished panelling.

As she thanked him he turned to one of his companions and said something
in which she caught the name of Mr. Loomis, and which was received with
an appreciative chuckle. She suspected herself of being the object of
the