“Where is Mary?” whispered Bess.

“That accounts for the sign I saw,” spoke Cora, telling her chums of the notice that an apprentice was wanted.  “Mary must have been discharged.  Madam would never keep two—­in Chelton.”

Madam Julia, as she was always called, entered with a swish of skirts and leaving a trail of French instructions behind her in the work-room—­instructions to her employees as to the trimming on this “effect” and the reshaping of that “creation.”

“Ah, yes, Mees Kimball,” she began.  “I am all in readiness —­but—­pardon—­zat Marie—­she haf left me—­in such hastiness—­I am all at what you call ze ocean—­how you express it?”

With a pretty little motion of her hands she looked appealingly at Cora.

“You mean all at sea, madam.”

“Ah, yes!  At sea!  How comprehensive!  Ze sea is always troubled, and so am I. Zat Marie she left me so suddenness—­I know not where are all my things—­I depend so much on her—­”

“Has Miss Downs left?” Cora could not refrain from asking.

“Ha!  Yes!  Zat is eet.  Precisely.  So quickly she go away an’ leaf me.  She does not think much about it, perhaps, but I am too busy to be so annoyed.  Just some relation not well—­indisposition, maybe—­well—­voila! she is gone—­it was not so in my time that a girl must leaf her trade and depart with such quickness—­run away.  Louise!  Louse!  Come instantly and for me find zat motor chapeau for Mademoiselle Kimball.”

Her voice rose to a shrill call.

“Quick!” she called, and then came a string of French.  “I must not be kept waiting—­eet was already packed—­”

Louise, who had replaced Mary Downs, found the bonnet Cora had ordered, and handed it to her mistress.  Cora took her place before a mirror, and madam began patting the motor cap hood affectionately over the girl’s black tresses.

“It will suit you to perfection!” exclaimed the French woman.  “You have ze hair beautiful.  Zere!” She brushed the hood down over Cora’s ears.  “Zat is ze way.  Do not wear a motor hood as if it was a tiara!  Zat is of a hatefulness!  Such bad taste!  Voila—­what is it zat you Americans say?—­ze fitness of zings.  Yes, zat is what I mean.”

The hood certainly looked well on Cora.  Bess and Belle nodded their approval.  It was of the old-fashioned Shaker type, of delicate pongee silk, and showed off to advantage Cora’s black, wavy fair, as it fell softly about her temples.

“Es eet not becoming?” demanded madam, and then she became profuse in her native tongue.  “Zat—­what you call Shaker—­eet is ze prettiest—­so chic—­voila!” and once more she patted it on Cora’s head.

Cora was very well pleased with it.  Then the mask was brought out.  This was a simple affair—­Cora only wanted such things as were practical.  The mask, which had been specially designed to suit the girl, was nothing more than a piece of veiling, with the goggles set in.  The veil was secured to the hood by a simple shirr string of elastic.