"How long is it since all this--all you have been telling me
about--happened!" (Leonard was eight years old.)
"Why--let me see. It was before I was married, and I was married
three years, and poor dear Pearson has been deceased five--I
should say going on for nine years this summer. Blush roses would
become your complexion, perhaps, better than these lilacs," said
she, as with superficial observation she watched Jemima turning
the bonnet round and round on her hand--the bonnet that her dizzy
eyes did not see.
"Thank you. It is very pretty. But I don't want a bonnet. I beg
your pardon for taking up your time." And with an abrupt bow to
the discomfited Mrs. Pearson, she was out and away in the open
air, threading her way with instinctive energy along the crowded
street. Suddenly she turned round, and went back to Mrs.
Pearson's with even more rapidity than she had been walking away
from the house.
"I have changed my mind," said she, as she came, breathless, up
into the show-room. "I will take the bonnet. How much is it?"
"Allow me to change the flowers; it can be done in an instant,
and then you can see if you would not prefer the roses; but with
either foliage it is a lovely little bonnet," said Mrs. Pearson,
holding it up admiringly on her hand.
"Oh! never mind the flowers--yes! change them to the roses." And
she stood by, agitated (Mrs. Pearson thought with impatience),
all the time the milliner was making the alteration with skilful,
busy haste.
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