Keith rose from the chair and, walking over to the counter, requested to be supplied with the tobacco he had come to buy.  Mary-’Gusta gave it to him.  Her cheeks were red and Keith was surprised to notice that she looked almost as if she would like to cry.  He guessed the reason.

“That young man will get himself thoroughly kicked some day,” he observed; “I’m not sure that I oughtn’t to have done it myself just now.  He annoyed you, I’m afraid.”

Mary-’Gusta answered without looking at him.

“That’s all right,” she said.  “I’m foolish, I guess.  He meant to be nice, perhaps.  Some girls may like that sort of niceness; I don’t.”

“Why didn’t you tell him to get out?”

“I wanted to see his samples.  It is time for us to buy our Christmas things and I had rather choose them myself, that’s all.”

“Oh!  But Mr. Hamilton or the Captain—­I should think—­”

“Oh, they might have bought some that we couldn’t sell.”

“The beauty-boxes, for instance?”

Mary-’Gusta smiled.  “Why, yes,” she admitted; “perhaps.”

“I see.  But it was rather an ordeal for you.  Do you have to endure much of that sort of thing?”

“No more than any girl who keeps store, I guess.”

At the dinner table that evening Keith referred to his experience as listener in Hamilton and Company’s shop.

“That girl with the queer name,” he said, “a niece of those two old chaps who run the place, I believe she is.  Do you know anything about her, Gertrude?”

Before Mrs. Keith could reply, Edna spoke: 

“Ask Sam, Dad,” she said, mischievously.  “Sam knows about her.  He just adores that store; he spends half his time there.”

“Nonsense, Edna!” protested Sam, turning red.  “I don’t do any such thing.”

“Oh, yes, you do.  And you know about Mary-’Gusta too.  He says she’s a peach, Daddy.”

“Humph!” grunted her brother, indignantly.  “Well, she is one.  She’s got every girl in your set skinned a mile for looks.  But I don’t know anything about her, of course.”

Mrs. Keith broke in.  “Skinned a mile!” she repeated, with a shudder.  “Sam, what language you do use!  Yes, John,” she added, addressing her husband.  “I know the girl well.  She’s pretty and she is sensible.  For a girl who has had no opportunities and has lived all her life here in South Harniss she is really quite remarkable.  Why do you speak of her, John?”

Mr. Keith related a part of the conversation between Mary-’Gusta and Mr. Kron.

“She handled the fellow splendidly,” he said.  “She talked business with him and she wouldn’t let him talk anything else.  But it was plain enough to see that she felt insulted and angry.  It seems a pity that a girl like that should have to put up with that sort of thing.  I wonder if her uncles, old Mr. Hamilton and Captain Shadrach, realize what happens when they’re not about?  How would they take it, do you think, if I dropped a hint?”