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Page 47
The last of these stops was before a window which looked so familiar
that Mary glanced up to see the name of the firm. Then she felt that she
had indeed reached a well-known haven, for the name was the same that
was woven in gold thread in the tiny silk tag inside her furs. It was
the place where Joyce had brought her to select her Christmas present,
and there inside the window was the pleasant saleswoman who had sold
them to her. She had been so nice and friendly and seemed to take such
an interest in pleasing them that Joyce had spoken of it afterward.
Then the woman recognized her--looked from the furs to the eager little
face above them and smiled. It seemed incredible to Mary that she should
have been remembered out of all the hundreds of customers who must pass
through the shop every day, but she did not know that the sight of her
delight over her gift had been the one bright spot in the saleswoman's
tiresome day.
Instantly her mind was made up, and darting into the shop in her
impetuous way, she told her predicament to the amused woman, and asked
permission to telephone to her sister.
Joyce, painting away with rapid strokes, in a hurry to finish the stent
she had set for herself, looked up a trifle impatiently at the ringing
of the telephone bell. Her first impulse was to call Mary to answer it,
but reflecting that probably the call would require her personal
attention sooner or later, laid down her brush and went to answer it
herself. She could hardly credit the evidence of her own ears when a
meek little voice called imploringly, "Oh, Joyce, could you come and get
me? I'm at the furrier's where you bought my Christmas present, and I
haven't a cent in my pocket and don't know the way home."
"What under the canopy!" gasped Joyce, startled out of her
self-possession. All morning she had been so sure that Mary was in the
next room that it was positively uncanny to hear her voice coming from
so far away.
"I've never known anything so spooky," she called. "I can't be sure its
you."
"Well, I wish it wasn't," came the almost tearful reply. "I'm awfully
sorry to interfere with your work, and you needn't stop till you get
through. They'll let me wait here until noon. I've got a comfortable
seat where I can peep out at the people on the street, and I don't feel
lost now that you know where I am." Then with a little giggle, "I'm like
the Irishman's tea-kettle that he dropped overboard. It wasn't lost
because he knew where it was--in the bottom of the sea."
"Well, you're Mary, all right," laughed Joyce. "That speech certainly
proves it. Don't worry, I'll get you home as soon as possible."
"Telephones are wonderful things," confided Mary to the saleswoman.
"They are as good as genii in a bottle for getting you out of trouble. I
should think the man who invented them would feel so much like a wizard,
that he'd be sort of afraid of himself."
The woman answered pleasantly, and would, gladly have continued the
conversation, but was called away just then to a customer. Hidden from
view of the street by a large dummy lady in a sealskin coat and
fur-trimmed skirt, Mary peeped out from behind it at the panorama
rolling past the window. At first she was intensely interested in the
endless stream of strange faces, but when an hour had slipped by and
still they came, always strange, always different, a sense of littleness
and loneliness seized her, that amounted almost to panic. She longed to
get away from this great myriad-footed monster of a city, back to
something small and familiar and quiet; to neighbourly greetings and
friendly faces. The loneliness caused by the strange crowds depressed
her. It was like a dull ache.
The moments dragged on. She had no way to judge how long she waited,
but the hour seemed at least two. Then suddenly, through the mass of
people came a well-known figure with a firm, athletic tread. A man, who
even in this crowd of well-dressed cosmopolitans attracted a second
look.
"Oh, it's Phil!" she exclaimed aloud, her face brightening as if the sun
had suddenly burst out on a cloudy day. She wondered if she dared do
such a thing as to tap on the window to attract his attention. She would
not have hesitated in Plainsville or Phoenix, but here everything was
so different. Somebody else might look and Phil never turn his head.
While she waited, half-rising from her chair, he stopped, looked up at
the sign, and then came directly towards the door. Wondering at the
strange coincidence that should bring him into the one shop in all New
York in which she happened to be sitting, she started up, thinking to
surprise him. Then the surprise was hers, for she saw that he was in
search of _her_. With a word to the obsequious salesman who met him, he
came directly towards her hiding-place behind the dummy in sealskin. His
face lighted with a merry smile that was good to see as he crossed over
to her with outstretched hand, saying laughingly:
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