The door-boy, a dapper little colored chap, in an exceedingly
tight-fitting suit of blue, with innumerable brass buttons on it, in
double rows in front, in triple rows behind, and in single rows on
sleeves, opened the portal for the young ladies, bowing low as he
did so.

"I guess this is Mary coming now," said Cora in a low voice as she
heard some one approaching from behind the silken draperies that
separated part of the shop.

But the three customers looked up in surprise when a strange young
girl appeared through the parted curtains.

"Miss Kimball," said Cora, announcing her own name, for she had an
appointment.

"Oh, yes," was the girl's answer. "I will tell madam."

"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."