Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp | Page 2

four not
very large panes, was arranged on a cross of bright metal a knitted
over-blouse of the very newest burnt orange shade. The work was
exquisitely done, as Betty could see even from outside the shop, and
she did hope it would fit her.
On pushing open the door a silvery bell--not an annoying, jangling
bell--played a very lively tune to attract the attention of a girl who sat at
the back of the shop, her head bent close above the work on which she
was engaged. Although the bell stopped quivering when Betty closed
the door, the girl did not look up from her work.
Sharp-eyed Betty saw that the stranger was knitting, and she seemed to
be engaged upon another over-blouse like that in the window, save that
the silk in her lap was of a pretty dark blue shade. Betty saw her full,
red lips move placidly. The girl was counting over her work and she
actually was so deeply immersed in the knitting that she had not heard
the bell or realized that a possible customer had entered.
"Ahem!" coughed Betty.
"And that's twenty-four, and--cross--and two--and four----" The girl
was counting aloud.
"Why," murmured Betty Gordon, her eyes dancing, "she's like Libbie
Littell when she is somnambulating--I guess that is the right word.
Anyway, when Libbie walks in her sleep she talks just like that----

"Ahem!"
This time Betty almost shouted the announcement of her presence in
the shop and finally startled the other girl out of her abstraction. The
latter looked up, winked her eyes very fast, and began to roll up her
work in a clean towel. Betty noticed that her eyes were very blue and
were shaded by dark lashes.
"I beg your pardon," said the shopgirl. "Have you been waiting long?"
She came forward quickly and with an air of assurance. Her look was
not a happy one, however, and Betty wondered at her sadness. "What
can I show you?" asked the shopgirl.
She was not much older than Betty herself, but she was more
self-possessed and seemed much more experienced than even Betty,
much as the latter had traveled and varied as her adventures had been
during the previous year and a half. But now the stranger's questions
brought Betty to a renewed comprehension of what she had actually
entered the shop for.
"I'm just crazy about that blouse in the window--the orange one," she
cried. "I know you must have made it yourself, for you are knitting
another, I see, and that is going to be pretty, too. But I want this orange
one--if it doesn't cost too much."
"The price is twelve dollars. I hope it is not too much," said the
shopgirl timidly. "I sold one for all of that before I left Liverpool."
Betty was as much interested now in the other girl as she was in the
orange silk over-blouse.
"Why!" she exclaimed, "you are English, aren't you? And you and your
family can't long have been over here."
"I have been here only two months," said the girl quietly.
There was a certain dignity in her manner that impressed Betty. She
had very dark, smoothly arranged hair and a beautiful complexion. She

was plump and strongly made, and she walked gracefully. Betty had
noted that fact when she came forward from the back of the shop.
"But you didn't come over from England all alone?" asked the curious
young customer, neglecting the blouse for her interest in the girl who
spread out its gossamer body for approval.
"It took only seven days from Liverpool to New York," said the other
girl, looking at Betty steadily, still with that lack of animation in her
face. "I might have come alone; but it was better for me to travel with
somebody, owing to the emigration laws of your country. I traveled as
nursemaid to a family of Americans. But I separated from them in New
York and came here."
"Oh!" Betty exclaimed, not meaning to be impertinent. "You had
friends here in Georgetown?"
"I thought I had a relative in Washington. I had heard so. I failed to find
her so--so I found this shop, kept by a woman who came from my
county, and she gave me a chance to wait shop," said the English girl
wearily.
"Mrs. Staples lets me knit these blouses to help out, for she cannot pay
large wages. The trade isn't much, you see. This one, I am sure, will
look lovely on you. I hope the price is not too much?"
"Not a bit, if it will fit me and I have that much money in my purse,"
replied Betty, who for a girl of her age had a good deal of money to
spend quite as she pleased.
She opened