ead if she had asked him to, and he hurried off with
the cup, meeting Jack, who had cooled himself, bought a pound of candy
at one table and some flowers at another, and was making his way back to
Eloise. He had also looked round a little for the apron he was going to
buy, but could not find it. He'd make another tour of inspection later,
he thought, for he meant to have it, if it were still there. Taking his
stand on one side of Eloise's chair while Howard stood on the other, the
three made a striking tableau at which many looked admiringly,
commenting upon the beauty of the young girl,--the kind, good-humored
face of Jack, and the haughty bearing of Howard, who, an aristocrat to
his finger tips, watched the proceedings with an undisguised look of
contempt showing itself in his sarcastic smile and the expression of his
eyes.

Eloise was greatly interested and so expressed herself. She had seen the
scrub woman haggling with Ruby Ann over the brown and white spotted
wrapper, and had seen it laid aside until another customer came, when
the same haggling took place with the same result, for Mrs. Biggs, who
darted in and out, still clung to the price put upon it and so retarded
the sale. The last time Ruby Ann brought it out Howard and Jack both
recognized it.

"By Jove! I've half a mind to buy it myself as a kind of souvenir,"
Jack said, but a look of disgust in Eloise's face and a frown on
Howard's deterred him, and he kept very quiet for a while, wondering
where that apron was and if by any possibility it could have been sold.

The box of articles which Jack's sister had sent from New York had been
sold early in the day, and Amy's dresses had not been opened. Nearly
everything of any value was gone. Two of Howard's neckties still
remained conspicuously near the young men, who watched Tom Walker as he
examined them very critically, and they heard the saleswoman say, "They
belonged to Mr. Howard Crompton. They say he has dozens of them and all
first-class. This suits you admirably,"--and she held up a white satin
one with a faint tinge of blue.

Tom took it, disappeared for a few minutes, and when he came back to the
chair he was resplendent in his new necktie which he had adjusted in the
dressing-room, adding to it a Rhine-stone pin bought at the jewelry
counter. Howard's vanity told him he was complimented, and that
restrained the laugh which sprang to his lips at the incongruity between
Tom's dress and the satin nec