r
wares, and selected one from the collars before her. The while she
heard her sister's voice.

"Do you consider this a good locality for a shop?" Mrs. Millard asked.
"It seems to me quite otherwise, and I think it the only proper course
to tell you that the neighborhood strongly objects to such an
intrusion."

Miss Virginia felt her face grow hot.

"Isn't it a little late to tell us this?" The tall young woman who had
put down her knitting to serve the newcomer seemed not a whit abashed
at Mrs. Millard's manner. If anything, she was the more queenly of the
two, and might have been bestowing a favor as she handed back the
change.

Norah's sunny face intervened, "We are very sorry if you don't want
us," she said, "for we shall have to stay for the present. We think we
are quite as nice as a drug store, and perhaps we shall be able to
convince you of it before long."

Could Caroline hold out against such winning address? What she might
have said or done was never known, for James Mandeville, desiring to
see what was going on, and attempting to crawl under the rack with its
burden of fabrics, precipitated it upon himself and was lost in the
ruins, while Miss Virginia was revealed in all her ignominy, with a
flannel donkey in her lap, to the eyes of her relative.

"Virginia! I am astonished!"

Miss Wilbur rose to the occasion. "So am I, Caroline. I, too, came to
get a spool of twist." There is good authority for the assertion that
one may smile and be a villain, but hitherto such depths of perfidy
had been unsuspected in Miss Virginia.

The united efforts of the shopkeepers were required to disentangle
James Mandeville and quiet his cries of alarm. In the struggle Miss
Wilbur's bag suffered a complete upturn, and her small change was
scattered to the four corners of the room.

Mrs. Millard stood apart looking on in disdain at the confusion, when
again the shop door opened, this time to admit Miss Sarah Leigh who
advanced and addressed her, fumbling in her pocket-book meanwhile and
not lifting her eyes. "I want a spool of twist," she said, producing a
sample of blue silk. "Why, Caroline Wilbur!" and she stared in
amazement.

Norah who had set James Mandeville, still weeping, out of harm's way
on the table, met Miss Sarah's bewildered gaze with a frank smile, as
if she appreciated the joke.

"Do you call this a shop?" Miss Sarah demanded; adding, "Well, if
there isn't Virginia! Are Judge Russell and Mr. Goodma