“Couldn’t; I’se waitin’ for somethin’,” answered the child, coolly.

“You were staring at and list’nin’ to those ladies at the ribbon counter; I saw you,” retorted the saleswoman.

“Well, I tole yer, I’se waitin’ for somethin’,” the girl answered, showing two rows of teeth in a mischievous grin.

A younger saleswoman, standing near, giggled.

“Don’t laugh at her, Lizzie,” rebuked the elder; “she’s getting too big for her boots with her impudence.”

“They ain’t boots; they’re shoes.”  And a thin little leg was thrust forward to show a foot encased in a shabby old shoe much too large for it.

Then, like a flash, the “imp,” as the saleswoman often termed her, seized the parcel that was ready for her, and darted off with it.

“You’ll get reported if you don’t look out,” the saleswoman called after her.

The “imp” turned her head and winked back at the irritated saleswoman in such a grotesque fashion that the lively Lizzie giggled again, for which she was told she ought to be ashamed of herself.  Good-natured Lizzie admitted the truth of this accusation, but declared that Becky was so funny she “just couldn’t help laughing.”

“You call it ‘funny,’” the other exclaimed; “I call it impudence.  She ain’t afraid of anything or anybody.  Look at her now! there she is back at the ribbon counter.  I wonder what those swells are talking about, that she’s so taken up with.  She’s up to some mischief, I’ll bet you, Lizzie.”

“I guess it’s only her fun.  She’s going to take ’em off by ‘n’ by,” said Lizzie.

This was one of the “imp’s” accomplishments,—­taking people off.  She was a great mimic, and on rainy days when the girls ate their luncheon in the room that the firm had allotted to them for that purpose, Miss Becky would “take off,” the various people that had come under her keen observation during the day.  “Private theatricals,” the lively Lizzie called this “taking off,” as Becky strutted and minced, with her chin up, her dress lifted in one hand, while with the other she held a pair of scissors for an eyeglass, and peered through the bows at a piece of cloth, which she picked and pecked and commented upon in fine-lady fashion,—­“just like the swells,” Lizzie declared.  It was quite natural then for her to conclude that it was fun of this sort that Becky was “up to,” in her close attention to the “swell” customers at the ribbon counter.  “She was studyin’ ’em, just as actresses study their play-parts,” Lizzie thought to herself; and half an hour later, when she met Becky in the lunch-room, she called out to her,—­

“Come, Becky, give us the swells at the ribbon counter.”

“Eh?” said Becky.

Lizzie repeated her request, and the other girls joined in:  “Yes, Becky, give us the swells at the ribbon counter; we want some fun.”

“They warn’t funny,” answered Becky, shortly.

“Oh! now, Becky, what’d you stand there lis’nin’ and lookin’ at ’em so long for?”