"Of course, we all like a change, don't we? I'll show you a wreath--
perfectly sweet it is, apple-blossom and leaves; it might be real, it's so
perfect." And away she went again for another box.

Mona felt as though her eighteenpence was shrivelling smaller and smaller.
It seemed such a ridiculously small sum to have come shopping with, and
she wished she had never done so. The girl dropped a huge box on the
counter, and whipped the cover off. She was panting a little from the
weight of it. Mona longed to sink out of sight, she was so ashamed of the
trouble she was giving, and only eighteenpence to spend after all!

"There, isn't that sweet, and only three and eleven three."

But Mona was by this time feeling so ashamed and bothered and
uncomfortable, she would not bring herself to look at the flowers.
"Yes, thank you, it's very pretty, but--but--it's too dear--and--I want
forget-me-nots."

Then, summoning up all the courage she had left, "You've got some wreaths
for one and fivepence three-farthings; it's one of those I want."

The girl's face changed, and her manner too. "Oh, it's one of the cheap
wreaths you want, like we've got in the window," and from another box she
dragged out one of the kind Mona had gazed at so longingly, and, without
handing it to her to look at, popped it into a bag, screwed up the top,
and pushed it across the counter. "One and five three," she snapped
rudely, and, while Mona was extracting her eighteenpence from her purse,
she turned to another attendant who had been standing looking on and
listening all the time.

"Miss Jones, dear, will you help me put all these boxes away."

Mona noticed the sneer in her voice, the glances the two exchanged.
She saw, too, Miss Jones's pitying smile and toss of her head, and she
walked out of the shop with burning cheeks and a bursting heart.
She longed passionately to throw down the wreath she carried and trample
on it--and as for Tamlin's shop! She felt that nothing would ever induce
her to set foot inside it again.

Poor Mona, as she hurried up the street with her longed-for treasure--now
detestable in her eyes--all the sunshine and happiness seemed to have gone
out of her days. She went along quickly, with her head down. She felt
she did not want to see or speak to anyone just then. She hurried through
the garden, where the patch of newly-turned earth was already drying under
the kiss of the sun, and the wallflowers were beginning