"A lady! Much of a lady she is. Why, she is one of your own shopgirls. You know it."
"Shopgirls?" cried Morris, in astonishment.
"Yes, shopgirls. You don't mean to say that she has concealed that fact from you, or that you didn't know it by seeing her in the store?"
"A shopgirl in my store?" he murmured, bewildered. "I knew I had seen her somewhere."
Blanche laughed a little irritating laugh.
"What a splendid item it would make for the society papers," she said. "The junior partner marries one of his own shopgirls, or, worse still, the junior partner and one of his shopgirls leave New York on the City of Buffalo, and are married in England. I hope that the reporters will not get the particulars of the affair." Then, rising, she left the amazed young man to his thoughts.
George Morris saw nothing more of Miss Katherine Earle that day.
"I wonder what that vixen has said to her," he thought, as he turned in for the night.
FIFTH DAY.
In the early morning of the fifth day out, George Morris paced the deck alone.
"Shopgirl or not," he had said to himself, "Miss
