“It will be quite an experience for us to go all alone,” Dorothy said. “We will have to be careful not to—break any laws.”
“Or any bric-a-brac,” added Tavia. “Some of those men we saw coming up looked to me like statues. I wonder anyone could enjoy life and be so stiff and statuesque.”
“We will see some strange things, I am sure,” Dorothy said. “I’m ready. Wait. I guess I’ll take my handbag. We may want to carry some little things home.”
“And I’ll take your silk bag if you don’t mind,” Tavia spoke. “I did not bring any along.”
So, after accepting all sorts of warnings from Ned and Mrs. White, each declaring that young girls had to be very well behaved, and very careful in such a large city, the two companions started off for their first day’s shopping.
Climbing up the little winding steps to the top of the Fifth Avenue ’bus Tavia dropped her muff. Of course a young fellow, with a fuzzy-wuzzy sort of a hat, caught it—on the hat. Tavia was plainly embarrassed, and Dorothy blushed. But it must be said that the young man with the velvet hat only looked at Tavia once and that was when he handed her muff up to her.
On top of the ’bus, away from the crowd (for they were alone up there), Dorothy and Tavia gave in to the laughter that was stifling them. They knew something would happen and it had, promptly.
“Perhaps that is why they wear such broad-brimmed hats,” Dorothy remarked, “to catch things.”
Soon an elderly woman puffed up the steps. She was so done up in furs she could not get her breath outside of them. Tavia and Dorothy took a double seat nearer the front, to allow the lady room near the steps.
“Oh, my! Thank you,” gasped the lady who had a little dog in her muff. “It does do one up so to climb steps!”
The country girls conversed in glances. They had read about dogs on strings, but had never heard of dogs in muffs.
“Lucky that muff did not drop,” Dorothy said, in a whisper. “I fancy the little dog would not like it.”
“I wish it had,” Tavia confessed. “The idea of a woman, who fairly has to crawl, carrying a dog with her.”
Once settled, the woman and the dog no longer interested our young friends. There were the boys on the street corners with their trays of violets; there were the wonderful mansions with so many sets of curtains that one might wonder how daylight ever penetrated; there were the taxicabs floating along like a new species of big bird; then the private auto conveyances—with orchids in hanging glasses! No wonder that Dorothy and Tavia scarcely spoke a word as they rode along.