"Well, I mus' say!" exclaimed the worthy Mrs. McAlarney to herself, when her amazed eyes fell upon the contents of the strange box, purporting to have come from a fashionable milliner's shop; "if that ain't the greatest! Whatever's got into Mr. Hickey?"
But the cerise plumes tarried in undeserved obscurity on the shelf of Mr. Hickey's clothes-press for exactly fifteen days thereafter; then they suddenly disappeared.
In the meantime their purchaser continued to indulge in unaccustomed reflections from day to day. He made no effort during all this time to see Miss Tripp; but on the fifteenth day he chanced to meet Sam Brewster as he was about entering the business men's lunchroom, which Mr. Hickey still frequented as in former days.
"Hello, old man!" was Sam's greeting. "Where have you been keeping yourself all these weeks? I thought you'd be around some evening to see us."
"Er--I've been thinking of it," admitted Mr. Hickey cautiously. "Is--er--Mrs. Brewster's friend, Miss Tripp, still with you?"
"No, George; she isn't," Sam told him, enjoying the look of uncontrolled dismay which instantly overspread Mr. Hickey's countenance. "She's gone next door to stay," he added.
"At the Stanfords' you know. Miss Tripp is keeping house and looking after the young Stanfords while their exhausted parents are endeavouring to recuperate their energies in the far west."
"Hum--ah," quoth Mr. Hickey thoughtfully, his mind reverting casually to the cerise plumes.
"She's doing wonders with those kids, my wife tells me," pursued Sam Brewster artfully. "Miss Tripp's a fine girl and no mistake; it'll be a lucky man who can secure her services for life."
Mr. Hickey offered no comment on this statement, and his friend waved his hand in token of farewell.
"Come around and see us, George, when you haven't anything better to do," he said, as he stepped out to the street.
"Oh--er--I say, Brewster; would it be the proper thing for me to call on Miss Tripp? I--I have a little explanation to make, and----"
"Miss Tripp's mother is chaperoning her," said Sam, with unsmiling gravity. "It would be, I should say, quite the proper thing for you to call upon her."
"Well; then I think I'd better take those----. Er--Brewster, I wonder if you could enlighten me?--You see it's this way, a--friend of mine called at my office the other day to consult me about a little matter. He said he'd been unfortunate enough to injure a lady's hat--feathers, you know--and he wanted to know what I'd do under like circumstances. 'Well, my dear fellow,' I told him, 'I don't know much about women's head-gear and that sort of thing; but,' I said, 'I should think the square thing to do would be to buy some handsome plumes and send them to the lady--something good and--er--expensive; say forty or fifty dollars.'"