Winnie Childs, the Shop Girl

								

the "Bruise."
"Sorry! I'll try not to laugh again till the sea goes down," Miss
Child apologized. "I wasn't laughing at any of you exactly, it was
more the whole situation: us, dressed like stars of the Russian ballet
and sick as dogs, pearls in our hair and basins in our hands, looking
like queens and feeling like dolls with our stuffing gone."
"Don't speak of stuffing. It makes me think of sage and onions,"
quavered the tallest queen.
"Ugh!" they all groaned, except Winifred Child, who was to blame for
starting the subject. "Ugh! Oh! Ugh!"
When they were better they lay back on their sofas, or leaned back in
their chairs, their beautiful--or meant to be beautiful--faces pale,
their eyes shut. And it was at this moment that Peter Rolls burst open
the door.
As he had observed, the waxlike figures moved, sat upright, and
stared. This sudden disturbance of brain balance made them all giddy,
but the surprise of seeing a man, not a steward, at the door, was so
great that for a moment or two it acted as a tonic. Nothing dreadful
happened to any one of the five until after the smooth black head had
been withdrawn and the door closed.
"A man!" breathed Miss Devereux, the abnormally tall girl in yellow
chiffon over gold gauze.
"Yes, dear. I wonder what he wanted?" sighed Miss Carroll, the girl in
rose.
The one in green was Miss Tyndale, the one in black and blue Miss
Vedrine, all very becoming labels; and if they had Christian names of
equal distinction to match, the alien known at home simply as "Win"
had never heard them. They called each other Miss Devereux, Miss
Carroll, Miss Tyndale, and Miss Vedrine, or else "dear."
"I wish we could think he wanted to see us!" remarked Miss Tyndale.
"I hope he didn't notice the basins," added Miss Vedrine
"I think we hid them with our trains," said Miss Carroll.
"Was he nice looking?" Miss Vedrine had courage to ask. She had
wonderful red hair, only a little darker at the roots, and long,
straight black eyelashes. A few of these had come off on her cheeks,
but they were not noticeable at a distance.
"I don't know, I'm sure, dear," replied Miss Devereux, a fawn-eyed
brunette, who was nearest the door. "There wasn't time to see. I just
thought: 'Good heavens! have we got to parade?' Then, 'No, thank
goodness, it's a man!' And he was gone."
"What should we do if a woman did come, and we had to get up?"
wondered Miss Vedrine, whose great specialty was her profile and
length of white throat.
"She wouldn't be a woman; she'd be a monster, to care about clothes in
weather like this," pronounced the golden-haired Miss Carroll. "Parade
indeed! I wouldn't. I'd simply lie down and expire."
"I feel I've never till now sympathized enough with the animals in the
ark," said Miss Child, who had not chosen her own name, or else had
shown little taste in selection, compared with the others. But she
was somehow different, rather subtly different, from them in all ways;