"Fifty cents a bottle, if you give the bottle back," said Stella,
who felt that the lady's friendliness toward her demanded that she
should answer?

"Fifty cents a bottle!" exclaimed the lady. "Surely you can't mean
that! Why, pennyroyal extract isn't worth a cent a quart!"

The girls looked genuinely disturbed. This was a different
opinion, indeed, from that advanced by the pretty lady who had
bought three bottles!

Marjorie suddenly began to feel as if she were doing something
very foolish, and something which she ought not to have undertaken
without Grandma's advice.

"Is that all it's worth, truly?" she asked, looking
straightforwardly into the lady's eyes.

"Why, yes, my dear,--I'm sure it could not have a higher market
value."

"Then we don't want to sell you any," said Marjorie, whose sense
of honesty was aroused; and picking up her basket from the porch,
she turned toward the street, walking fast, and holding her head
high in the air, while her cheeks grew very red.

Molly followed her, uncertain as to what to do next, and Stella
trailed along behind, a dejected little figure, indeed, with her
heavy basket on her arm.