t blouse in the window--the orange one," she
cried. "I know you must have made it yourself, for you are knitting
another, I see, and that is going to be pretty, too. But I want this
orange one--if it doesn't cost too much."

"The price is twelve dollars. I hope it is not too much," said the
shopgirl timidly. "I sold one for all of that before I left Liverpool."

Betty was as much interested now in the other girl as she was in the
orange silk over-blouse.

"Why!" she exclaimed, "you are English, aren't you? And you and your
family can't long have been over here."

"I have been here only two months," said the girl quietly.

There was a certain dignity in her manner that impressed Betty. She had
very dark, smoothly arranged hair and a beautiful complexion. She was
plump and strongly made, and she walked gracefully. Betty had noted that
fact when she came forward from the back of the shop.

"But you didn't come over from England all alone?" asked the curious young
customer, neglecting the blouse for her interest in the girl who spread
out its gossamer body for approval.

"It took only seven days from Liverpool to New York," said the other girl,
looking at Betty steadily, still with that lack of animation in her face.
"I might have come alone; but it was better for me to travel with
somebody, owing to the emigration laws of your country. I traveled as
nursemaid to a family of Americans. But I separated from them in New York
and came here."

"Oh!" Betty exclaimed, not meaning to be impertinent. "You had friends
here in Georgetown?"

"I thought I had a relative in Washington. I had heard so. I failed to
find her so--so I found this shop, kept by a woman who came from my
county, and she gave me a chance to wait shop," said the English girl
wearily.

"Mrs. Staples lets me knit these blouses to help out, for she cannot pay
large wages. The trade isn't much, you see. This one, I am sure, will look
lovely on you. I hope the price is not too much?"

"Not a bit, if it will fit me and I have that much money in my purse,"
replied Betty, who for a girl of her age had a good deal of money to spend
quite as she pleased.

She opened her bag hastily and took out her purse. The purse was made of
cut steel beads and, as Betty often said, "everything stuck to it!"
Something clung to it now as she drew it forth, but neither Betty nor the
shopgirl saw the dangling twist of tissue paper.

"And I'll buy that other one you are knitt