drew on her gloves rather awkwardly, for they were the first pair she
had ever possessed. "Oh, well--I'm not going to be patched at all,
doctor. I simply won't have things tearing holes in me."

London, of course, was even more amazing than Edinburgh. They had a day
to spend there, and the doctor took her to Regent Street and Bond Street
in the morning. He was enjoying himself in a melancholy sort of fashion.
Marcella was _tabula rasa_. It was interesting to watch the impressions
registered on her surface.

The shops gave her none of the acquisitive pleasure he had expected. To
her they were interesting as museums might have been. She could not, she
did not see the use of them. The women thronging the windows and
departments of a great store through which they walked roused her to
excited comment.

"What are they buying them all for?" she said, looking at the hats and
frocks and the purchasers. "They have such nice ones already."

The doctor asked her if she did not think they were very pretty when he
had got over his amusement at the idea of women only buying things
because they needed them.

"Oh beautiful!" she cried rapturously. "But you couldn't do very much in
frocks like that."

"That's the idea, of course," said the doctor, watching her quizzically.
"If you only knew it, Marcella, all these shops are built upon a
foundation of what your professor calls 'questing cells.' You see--but
let's get out into the air. You've started my bee buzzing now."