“Now, don’t you think so?”

“I certainly do not.”

“Well,” said she, “to tell the truth, I kinder hated to send it too quick.  I hated to have it look as if I was scart.  It’s a pretty big bill, too, an’ they seem like real ladies, an’ the sister, the one that ain’t married, is as nice a girl as I ever see—­nicer than the other one, accordin’ to my way of thinkin’.  She ain’t stuck up a mite.  The rest of them don’t mean to be stuck up, but they be without knowin’ it.  Guess they was brought up so; but Charlotte ain’t.  Well, I kinder hated, as I say, to send that bill, especially as it is a pretty big one.  I made everything as reasonable as I could, but she had a good many things, an’ Charlotte had her bridesmaid’s dress, too, an’ it’s mounted up to considerable, an’ I hated to have ’em think I was dreadful scart.  I ’ain’t never been in the habit of sendin’ in a bill to nobody, not for some weeks after the things was did, an’ I didn’t like to this time.  But I says to myself, as long as there had been so much talk round ’mongst folks about the Carrolls not payin’ their bills, I’d wait a week an’ then I’d send it in.  Now it’s jest a week ago to-day since the weddin’, an’ there ain’t a word.  I thought mebbe they’d ask for the bill the way they did with Blumenfeldt, an’ now I want to know if you think I had better send the bill or wait a little while longer.”

Anderson replied that he thought it would do no harm, that he did not like to advise in such a case.

The dress-maker eyed him sharply and with a certain resentment.  “Now, I want to know,” said she.  “I want you to speak right out and tell me, if you think I’m imposin’.”

“I don’t quite understand what you mean,” Anderson replied, in bewilderment.  He was horribly annoyed and perplexed, but his manner was kind, for the memory of poor little Stella Mixter with her shower of blond curls was strong upon him, and there was something harrowingly pathetic about the combination of little, veinous hands twitching nervously in the folds of the blue gingham, the painstaking frizzes, the pale, screwed little face, and the illogical feminine brain.

But the dress-maker’s next remark almost dispelled the pathos.  “I want you to tell me right out,” said she, “if it would make any difference if I paid you.  Of course I know you’ve given up law, an’ I ‘ain’t thought of offerin’ you pay for advice.  I’ve traded all I can in your store, though I always think you are a little dearer, and I didn’t know but you’d think that made it all right; but—­”

“I do think it is all right,” Anderson returned, quickly, “I assure you, Mrs. Griggs, and I have never dreamed of such a thing as your paying me.  Indeed, I have given you no advice which I should have felt justified in sending in a bill for, if I were practising my profession.”

“Well, I didn’t think you had told me anything worth much,” said Madame Griggs, “but I know how lawyers tuck on for nothin’, and I didn’t know but you might feel—­”