usa tripped gayly into the store and a polite and obsequious
gentleman escorted her to that counter where she might find shawls, and
directed that she be waited upon, immediately.

The very prettiest girl among those in this department stepped forward.
She was the one which Arethusa might have chosen to wait upon her, had
she been choosing. But she was a dreadfully tired-looking girl, even
more tired looking than pretty, Arethusa noticed when she was closer.
She had great dark circles under her eyes and a pathetic sort of droop
to the corners of her mouth. Her black dress made her look still more
forlorn, for she was very pale and it accentuated the pallor.

But the girl smiled at Arethusa; she could not help it, tired as she
looked and really was, for Arethusa's eagerness to purchase was so
amusingly apparent.

"I want to see silk shawls," announced Arethusa, "rose-colored silk
shawls."

A bewildering variety of shawls was immediately spread before her, in
every conceivable shade of the color she had requested. How Miss
Asenath would have loved that heap of gayety! Arethusa found it
terribly difficult to make a choice. She picked out three as the
prettiest of the collection, after much deliberation and selection and
rejection; but each one was so lovely that she wanted every one of them
for Miss Asenath. Then she made an appeal to the girl.

"Which of these do _you_ think is the very prettiest? It's for an old
lady; the dearest old lady!"

The girl bent her dark head over the shawls Arethusa was holding.

"Is it for your grandmother?"

"No," replied Arethusa. "It's for my Aunt 'Senath. She's an invalid."

Then, of necessity almost, she must tell Miss Asenath's interesting
story, beginning way back at the very beginning, with the Romance
before the Fall. Her sympathetic telling of her Tale, her gestures and
her earnest voice, attracted every other girl at that counter, for it
was not a very busy morning, so that long before she had finished, four
or five other heads were bent in solemn consultation above the three
shawls from which final choice was to be made. They could not all agree
as to the one most desirable; tastes were different as to which shade
of rose would really be most becoming and best for Miss Asenath.
Finally, Arethusa and Jessie (for so the first girl's name had been
discovered to be) decided that majority must rule as always, and
selected as Miss Asenath's birthday gift what they themselves a