For the third time in that short half-hour a silence fell between the
two--a silence of perfect sympathy and understanding.

Five little strokes, tripping over each other in their haste, came
from the tiny clock on Mary Cutting's desk. It roused them both.

"Come on, old girl," said Mary Cutting. "I've a chore or two still to
do before my day is finished. Come along, if you like. There's a new
girl at the perfumes who wears too many braids, and puffs, and curls,
and in the basement misses' ready-to-wear there's another who likes to
break store rules about short-sleeved, lace-yoked lingerie waists. And
one of the floor managers tells me that a young chap of that callow,
semi-objectionable, high-school fraternity, flat-heeled shoe type has
been persistently hanging around the desk of the pretty little bundle
inspector at the veilings. We're trying to clear the store of that
type. They call girls of that description chickens. I wonder why some
one hasn't found a name for the masculine chicken."

[Illustration: "'Well, s'long, then, Shrimp. See you at eight'"]

"I'll give 'em one," said Emma McChesney as they swung down a broad,
bright aisle of the store. "Call 'em weasels. That covers their style,
occupation, and character."

They swung around the corner to the veilings, and there they saw the
very pretty, very blond, very young "chicken" deep in conversation
with her weasel. The weasel's trousers were very tight and English,
and his hat was properly woolly and Alpine and dented very much on one
side and his heels were fashionably flat, and his hair was slickly