mpletely off their guard and almost exploded with laughter. With a
lisping drawl and a voice none of her friends had ever heard before
Josie said:

"You were going to show me one of those vanity boxes. Miss O'Gorman
told me you had some for seven dollars. I met her at the corner about
five minutes ago."

"Oh, you did?" asked Mrs. Wright. "Well, I fancy I must have looked
another way for a moment." She glanced curiously at Josie, who returned
her stare with the utmost composure.

Elizabeth opened a drawer of vanity boxes and Josie crossed the room to
inspect them with an exaggerated walk which reminded Mary Louise of a
movie vamp. Again she was moved to laughter and had to pretend to
sneeze.

"I am afraid you have caught cold," said Mrs. Wright. "You must take
five grains of aspirin and go to bed. Follow it up with a dose of
aromatic spirits of ammonia and let your diet be light."

Mary Louise listened politely and Josie made her escape with her
suitcase without purchasing the vanity box.

CHAPTER VII
JOSIE GETS A JOB

When Josie left the Higgledy-Piggledy Shop, after having hoodwinked
Mrs. Wright, she made her way to a small hotel much favored by
traveling men. It was the address given by a man who wished to employ a
number of young women to travel in the South to introduce a line of
household articles as well as some jewel novelties.

"What experience have you had?" the man asked her.

"Plenty of it," Josie answered with assurance. "I tell you, mister, I
can sell anything from a baby's rattle to a tombstone. You can ask the
girls who run the Higgledy-Piggledy Shop here in Dorfield. Ever hear of
them?"

"Sure!"

"Well, I have a letter here from Miss Josie O'Gorman, who is chief cook
and bottle washer 'round there and she will tell you that I am a
winner. I tell you Mrs. Danny Dexter and Miss O'Gorman think old Sally
Blossom is a peacherino."

The man took the letter, which was written on Higgledy-Piggledy paper
and in Josie's best handwriting. In it the cleverness of Miss Sally
Blossom was lauded to the skies. Josie blushed through her paint as he
read it aloud.

"To think of my having the nerve to say all that about myself!" flashed
through her mind. "But I bet it lands me my job."

It did. Since she was the first to apply she was given her choice of a
field of operations and she chose Atlanta. She gave her address as 126
East Centre and made an engagement with the man to see him the next day
t