And, catching the eye of one of the ladies in charge, she piped up:
“Please, have you any presents here for about ten cents? We want one for my mother and one for Susan’s grandmother.”
“Ten cents?” said the lady, shaking her head. “I’m afraid not. But let me look about and see.”
Presently she returned with a handful of articles which she placed before her small customers.
“I’ve nothing for ten cents,” said she kindly. “But here are several articles for twenty-five and thirty and fifty cents.”
“Oh, Letty, I want that for Grandmother,” said Susan, forgetting both her shyness and her manners as she pointed a forefinger at an object which she felt sure would delight Grandmother beyond words.
It was a pale-blue stocking-darner with a little girl painted on one side and a little boy on the other, and Susan knew in her heart that she would never be happy again unless she could carry it home to-morrow and place it in Grandmother’s hands.
“That is twenty-five cents,” said the lady, and she waited patiently while Susan and Letty put their heads together and consulted whether they ought to spend so large a sum.
So the stocking-darner was wrapped and tied and handed over to Susan, who, without a single qualm, watched Letty take the precious quarter from its resting-place in the green pocketbook and hand it across the counter. It was money well spent, she thought.
“Now we must buy something for my mother,” said Letty. “How do you like this, Susan?”
It was a long purple box covered with bunches of violets and scrolls of gilt. In it were three cakes of strongly scented violet soap.
“I like it,” said Susan, sniffing vigorously. “The box is pretty, too. Maybe your mother will give it to you when it is empty.”
“I will take this, please,” said Letty, with the air of an experienced shopper.
And so easy and so delightful is it to form the habit of spending money that Letty and Susan didn’t even blink when they heard the price, “thirty cents.”
They moved on, laden with their bundles, their eyes glancing hither and thither as they missed nothing of the gay scene about them. The Fair was now at its height. Every one was either buying or selling or walking about, laughing and talking, and all displaying their purchases in such a holiday mood, that Susan, at least, felt that she had never been in such a festive scene before.