Naturally, the Hapgoods are devoted to Dorothy. Besides, Ned and Nat, her cousins, have visited Sunnyside and are vastly interested in Jennie. The girl chums now in New York City on this shopping tour, expect on returning to North Birchland to find Jennie Hapgood there for a promised visit. At the moment, however, that we find Dorothy and Tavia at the beginning of this chapter, neither girl is thinking much about Jennie Hapgood and her expected visit, or of anything else of minor importance. The flashily dressed woman who had run after Tavia down the aisle, again screamed her accusation at the amazed and troubled girl: “That’s my bag! It’s cram full of money, too.” There was no great crowd in the store, for New York ladies do not as a rule shop much before luncheon. Nevertheless, besides salespeople, there were plenty to hear the woman’s unkind accusation and enough curious shoppers to ring in immediately the two troubled girls and the angry woman. “Give me it!” exclaimed the latter, and snatched the bag out of Tavia’s hand. As this was done the catch slipped in some way and the handbag burst open. It was “cram full” of money. Bills of large denomination were rolled carelessly into a ball, with a handkerchief, a purse for change, several keys, and a vanity box. Some of these things tumbled out upon the floor and a young boy stooped and recovered them for her. “You’re a bad, bad girl!” declared the angry woman. “I hope they send you to jail.” “Why—why, I didn’t know it was yours,” murmured Tavia, quite upset. “Oh! you thought somebody had forgotten it and you could get away with it,” declared the other, coarsely enough. “I beg your pardon, Madam,” Dorothy Dale here interposed. “It was a mistake on my friend’s part. And _you_ are making another mistake, and a serious one.” She spoke in her most dignified tone, and although Dorothy was barely in her twentieth year she had the manner and stability of one much older. She realized that poor Tavia was in danger of “going all to pieces” if the strain continued. And, too, her own anger at the woman’s harsh accusation naturally put the girl on her mettle. “Who are _you_, I’d like to know?” snapped the woman. “I am her friend,” said Dorothy Dale, quite composedly, “and I know her to be incapable of taking your bag save by chance. She laid her own down on the counter and took up yours——” “And where _is_ mine?” suddenly wailed Tavia, on the verge of an hysterical outbreak. “My bag! My money——” “Hush!” whispered Dorothy in her friend’s pretty ear. “Don’t become a second harridan—like this creature.” The woman had led the way back to the silk counter. Tavia began to claw wildly among the broken bolts of silk that the clerk had not yet been able to return to the shelves. But she stopped at Dorothy’s command, and stood, pale and trembling. A floorwalker hastened forward. He evidently knew the noisy woman as a good customer of the store.