lent piece of dark gray, which Ellen fell in love with at once; but she was again disappointed; it was fourteen shillings.
“Well, if you won’t take that, take something else,” said the man; “you can’t have everything at once; if you will have cheap goods, of course you can’t have the same quality that you like; but now, here’s this other blue, only twelve shillings, and I’ll let you have it for ten if you’ll take it.”
“No, it is too light and too coarse,” said Ellen, “mamma wouldn’t like it.”
“Let me see,” said he, seizing her pattern and pretending to compare it; “it’s quite as fine as this, if that’s all you want.”
“Could you,” said Ellen timidly, “give me a little bit of this gray to show to mamma?”
“O no!” said he impatiently, tossing over the cloths and throwing Ellen’s pattern on the floor; “we can’t cut up our goods; if people don’t choose to buy of us they may go somewhere else, and if you cannot decide upon anything I must go and attend to those that can. I can’t wait here all day.”
“What’s the matter, Saunders?” said one of his brother clerks, passing him.
“Why I’ve been here this half hour showing cloths to a child that doesn’t know merino from a sheep’s back,” said he, laughing. And some other customers coming up at the moment, he was as good as his word, and left Ellen, to attend to them.
Ellen stood a moment stock still, just where he had left her, struggling with her feelings of mortification; she could not endure to let them be seen. Her face was on fire; her head was dizzy. She could not stir at first, and in spite of her utmost efforts she could not command back one or two rebel tears that forced their way; she lifted her hand to her face to remove them as quietly as possible.
“What is all this about, my little girl?” said a strange voice at her side.
Ellen started, and turned her face, with the tears but half wiped away, toward the speaker. It was an old gentleman, an odd old gentleman, too, she thought; one she certainly would have been
