"Now where is that store?" said Dorothy, looking about with a puzzled air. "I'm sure it was right over there."

"Isn't that a store," said Tavia, "where all those autos and carriages are?"

"Where?" asked Dorothy, still bewildered.

"Where the brown-liveried man is helping ladies out of carriages and things," Tavia answered.

"Oh," said Dorothy meekly, "I thought that was a hotel!"

If there was anything in the world more subduedly rich, or more quietly lavish, than the shop that Dorothy and Tavia entered, the girls from the country could not imagine it. The richest and most costly of all things for which the feminine heart yearns, were displayed here. For the first few moments the girls did not talk. They were silent with the wonder of the costliness on every side. Then Tavia said timidly: "Nothing has a price mark on!"

"Hush!" whispered Dorothy, "they don't have vulgar prices here. They only sell to persons who never ask prices."

"Oh!" said Tavia, with quick understanding, "however, dare me to ask that wonderful creature with the coiffure, the price of those finger bowls,"

murmured Tavia, a yearning entering her soul to possess a priceless article.

"What do you want with finger bowls?" asked Dorothy, mystified.

"How do I know? I may yet need a finger bowl," enigmatically responded Tavia, "maybe to plant a little fern in." She handled the finger bowl tenderly. Dorothy, too, picked up a tiny bra.s.s horse, hammered in exquisite lines. "Isn't this lovely!" she exclaimed.

"It's a wonderful piece of work," admired Tavia, while she clung with intense yearning to the finger bowl.

"How much are these, please?" Dorothy asked the saleswoman.

The saleswoman carefully brushed back two stray locks that had escaped from their net, and gazing into s.p.a.ce said: "Five dollars and Six dollars and ninety-seven cents." Her att.i.tude was slightly scornful at being asked the very common "how much."

The scorn was too much for Tavia's spirit. She lifted her chin: "I'll take two of each kind, if you please, send them C.O.D.," and, giving her Riverside Drive address, Tavia, followed by Dorothy, turned and gracefully swayed from the counter, in grand imitation of an elegantly gowned young girl who had just purchased some bra.s.s, and had it charged.

"Tavia, how awful!" gasped Dorothy. "Whatever will you do with those things!"

"Send them back," answered Tavia, with great recklessness, her chin still held high.

Dorothy admitted that of course it wasn't at all possible to back away from such a saleswoman, but she felt quite guilty about something. "We shouldn't have yielded to our feelings," she said gently, "it would, at best, have been only momentary humiliation."

"We're in the wrong store," said Tavia, decidedly, "I must see price signs that can be read a block away. This place is too exquisite!"

"Isn't this the dearest!" Dorothy darted to the handkerchief counter, and picked up a dainty bit of lace.

Tavia gazed at the small lacy thing with rapt attention, cautiously trying to see some hidden mark to indicate the cost, but there was none.

"Something finer than this, please," queried Tavia, of the saleswoman, "it's exquisite, Dorothy, but not just what I like, you see."

Dorothy kept a frightened pair of eyes downcast, as the saleswoman handed Tavia another lace handkerchief saying, with a genial smile: "Eighteen dollars." Tavia held up the handkerchief critically: "And this one?" she asked, pointing to another.

"Twelve dollars," replied the saleswoman, all attention.

"We must hurry on," interposed Dorothy, grasping Tavia's arm in sheer desperation, "there are so many other things, suppose we leave the handkerchiefs until last?"

Critically Tavia fingered the costly bits of lace, as if unable to decide. Then she smiled artlessly at the saleswoman. "It's hard to say, of course, we're so rushed for time, but we'll look at them again."

Together the girls hurried for the street door.

"That was really New York style; wasn't it?" triumphantly declared Tavia.

"Never again will I submit to superior airs when I want to know the price."

"Hadn't we better ask someone where stores are that sell goods with price marks on them?" laughingly asked Dorothy.

They followed the crowd toward Broadway and Sixth Avenue. Gaily Tavia tripped along. She never had been happier in all her life. She loved the whirl and the people, and the never-ending air of gaiety. Dorothy liked it all, but it made her a bit weary; the festal air of the crowd did seem so meaningless.

When they reached Sixth Avenue it took but an instant for both girls to pick out the most enticing shop and thither they hurried. It was brilliantly lighted, the gorgeous splendor was Oriental in its beauty, there was no quiet hidden loveliness about this store, it dazzled and charmed and it had price signs! Just nice little white signs, with dull red figures, not at all "screeching" at customers, but most useful to persons of limited means. One could tell with the merest glance just what counter to keep away from.

A struggling ma.s.s of humanity, mostly women, were packed in tightly about one counter. The girls could not get closer than five feet, but patiently they stood waiting their turn to see what wonderful thing was on sale. It was Tavia's first bargain rush, and for every elbow that was jammed into her ribs, she stepped on someone's foot. Dorothy held her head high above the crowd to breathe. At last they reached the counter, and the bargains that all were frantically aiming to reach were saucepans at ten cents each.

"After that struggle, we must get one, just for a memento of the bargain rush," exclaimed Dorothy, crowding her m.u.f.f under her arm. Something fell to the floor with a crash at the movement of Dorothy's arm. Immediately there was great confusion, because, a little woman, flushed and greatly excited had cried out, "My purse! I beg your pardon madam, that is my purse you have!"

The small, excited woman was clinging desperately to the arm of another woman, who towered above the crowd.

"Why, that's Miss Mingle!" cried Tavia to Dorothy.

"Oh, Miss Mingle!" called out Dorothy.

"Girls," cried the little Glenwood teacher, excitedly, "this woman s.n.a.t.c.hed my purse!"

They were all too excited at the moment to find anything strange in thus meeting with one another.

The big woman calmly surveyed the girls: "She, the blond one, knocked your purse down with her m.u.f.f, I was goin' to pick it up, that's all.

It's under your feet now."

The woman slowly backed into the crowd.

Dorothy's eyes opened wide with wonder! The thing that had fallen had certainly made a crash! and the leather end sticking from the cuff of the woman's fur coat sleeve surely looked like a purse! Dorothy gasped at the horror of it! What could she do? The woman was moving slowly farther and farther away.

Miss Mingle stooped to the floor in search of the purse. As quick as a flash the woman slipped out of the crowd, as Miss Mingle loosened her hold. Amazed and horrified at the boldness of the theft, Dorothy for one instant stood undecided, then she sprang after the woman and faced her unflinchingly:

"Give me that purse! It's in the cuff of your coat sleeve!"

The woman drew herself up indignantly, glared at Dorothy, and would have made an effort to get away, scornfully ignoring the girl who barred her path, when a store detective arrived on the spot.

She, too, was a girl, modestly garbed in black. In a perfectly quiet voice she spoke to the woman.

"These matters can always be settled at our office, madam. Come with me."

"The idea!" screamed the woman. "I never was insulted like this before!

How dare you!"

"There is nothing to scream about," said the young detective, in her soft voice, "I've merely asked you to come to the office and talk it over.

Isn't that fair?"

"Indeed, I'll submit to nothing of the sort! A hard-working, honest woman like I am!" She made another effort to elude her accusers by a quick movement, but Dorothy kept close to one side and the store detective followed at the other. The woman stared stubbornly at the detective.

Disgusted with the performance, Dorothy quietly reached for the protruding purse and held it up.