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Marcella shut her lips so tightly that they turned white to keep back the impatient retort that rose momentarily to her lips. The insolence of some customers was always trying to the sensitive, high-spirited girl, but today it seemed unbearable. Her head throbbed fiercely with the pain of the ever-increasing ache, and–what was the lady on her right saying to a friend?

“Yes, she had typhoid, you know–a very bad form. She rallied from it, but she was so exhausted that she couldn’t really recover, and the doctor said–“

“Really,” interrupted Mrs. Liddell’s sharp voice, “may I ask you to attend to me, if you please? No doubt gossip may be very interesting to you, but I am accustomed to having a clerk pay some small attention to my requirements. If you cannot attend to your business, I shall go to the floor walker and ask him to direct me to somebody who can. The laziness and disobligingness of the girls in this store is really getting beyond endurance.”

A passionate answer was on the point of Marcella’s tongue. All her bitterness and suffering and resentment flashed into her face and eyes. For one moment she was determined to speak out, to repay Mrs. Liddell’s insolence in kind. A retort was ready to her hand. Everyone knew that Mrs. Liddell, before her marriage to a wealthy man, had been a working girl. What could be easier than to say contemptuously: “You should be a judge of a clerk’s courtesy and ability, madam. You were a shop girl yourself once?”

But if she said it, what would follow? Prompt and instant dismissal. And Patty? The thought of the little sister quelled the storm in Marcella’s soul. For Patty’s sake she must control her temper–and she did. With an effort that left her white and tremulous she crushed back the hot words and said quietly: “I beg your pardon, Mrs. Liddell. I did not mean to be inattentive. Let me show you some of our new lingerie waists, I think you will like them.”

But Mrs. Liddell did not like the new lingerie waists which Marcella brought to her in her trembling hands. For another half hour she examined and found fault and sneered. Then she swept away with the scornful remark that she didn’t see a thing there that was fit to wear, and she would go to Markwell Bros. and see if they had anything worth looking at.

When she had gone, Marcella leaned against the counter, pale and exhausted. She must have a breathing spell. Oh, how her head ached! How hot and stifling and horrible everything was! She longed for the country herself. Oh, if she and Patty could only go away to some place where there were green clover meadows and cool breezes and great hills where the air was sweet and pure!

During all this time a middle-aged woman had been sitting on a stool beside the bargain counter. When a clerk asked her if she wished to be waited on, she said, “No, I’m just waiting here for a friend who promised to meet me.”

She was tall and gaunt and grey haired. She had square jaws and cold grey eyes and an aggressive nose, but there was something attractive in her plain face, a mingling of common sense and kindliness. She watched Marcella and Mrs. Liddell closely and lost nothing of all that was said and done on both sides. Now and then she smiled grimly and nodded.

When Mrs. Liddell had gone, she rose and leaned over the counter. Marcella opened her burning eyes and pulled herself wearily together.

“What can I do for you?” she said.

“Nothing. I ain’t looking for to have anything done for me. You need to have something done for you, I guess, by the looks of you. You seem dead beat out. Aren’t you awful tired? I’ve been listening to that woman jawing you till I felt like rising up and giving her a large and wholesome piece of my mind. I don’t know how you kept your patience with her, but I can tell you I admired you for it, and I made up my mind I’d tell you so.”