can never begin to tell you how grateful I am to get
this back."

In too great haste to see the amused glances that followed her, she
hurried out to the corner to wait for a home-going car. While she stood
there she opened her purse again for one more look at the rescued
shilling. Then she gave a gasp. When she left the house the purse had
held a nickel and a dollar. She had spent the nickel for car fare and
left the dollar at the bank. Nothing was in it now but the shilling, and
that was not a coin of the realm, even had she been willing to spend it.
She would have to walk home.

"Now I _am_ in for an adventure," she groaned, looking helplessly around
at the hundreds of strange faces sweeping past her. "It's like 'water,
water everywhere, and not a drop to drink.' People, people everywhere,
and not a soul that I dare speak to."

Knowing that she could never find her way home should she undertake to
walk all those miles, and that she would attract unpleasant attention if
she stood there much longer, she started to stroll on, trying to decide
what to do next. One block, two blocks and nearly three were passed, and
she had reached no decision, when she came upon a motherly-looking woman
and two half-grown girls, who had stopped in front of a window to look
at a display of hats, marked down to half price. Mary stopped too. Not
that she was interested in hats, but because she felt a sense of
protection in their company.

"No, mamma," one of the girls was saying, "I'm _sure_ we'll find
something at Wanamaker's that will suit us better, and it's only a few
blocks farther. Let's go there."

Wanamaker's had a familiar sound to Mary. The place where she had
lunched only two days before would seem like home after these
bewildering stranger-filled streets. So when the bargain-hunting trio
started in that direction, she followed in their wake. They paused often
to look in at the windows, and each time Mary paused too, as far from
them as possible, since she did not want to call attention to the fact
that she was following them.

The last of these stops was before a window which looked so familiar
that Mary glanced up to see the name of the firm. Then she felt that she
had indeed reached a well-known haven, for the name was the same that
was woven in gold thread in the tiny silk tag inside her furs. It was
the place where Joyce had brought her to select her Christmas present,
and there inside the window was the pleasant sale