"Forget-me-nots? Oh, yes, dear, we have some lovely flowers this season, all new in. Perhaps you'd prefer roses. We have some beautiful roses, pink, red, yellow, and white ones--and wreaths, we have some sweet wreaths, moss and rose buds, and sweet peas and grasses." She proceeded to drag out great boxes full of roses of all shapes and kinds. Mona looked at them without interest. "No, thank you I want forget-me-nots." "Oh, well, there's no harm in looking at the others, is there? I've got some sweet marg'rites too. I'll show you. P'raps you'll change your mind when you see them. Blue ties you so, doesn't it?" "I've got daisies on a hat already. I'm tired of them. I want something different." "Of course, we all like a change, don't we? I'll show you a wreath-- perfectly sweet it is, apple-blossom and leaves; it might be real, it's so perfect." And away she went again for another box. Mona felt as though her eighteenpence was shrivelling smaller and smaller. It seemed such a ridiculously small sum to have come shopping with, and she wished she had never done so. The girl dropped a huge box on the counter, and whipped the cover off. She was panting a little from the weight of it. Mona longed to sink out of sight, she was so ashamed of the trouble she was giving, and only eighteenpence to spend after all! "There, isn't that sweet, and only three and eleven three." But Mona was by this time feeling so ashamed and bothered and uncomfortable, she would not bring herself to look at the flowers. "Yes, thank you, it's very pretty, but--but--it's too dear--and--I want forget-me-nots." Then, summoning up all the courage she had left, "You've got some wreaths for one and fivepence three-farthings; it's one of those I want." The girl's face changed, and her manner too. "Oh, it's one of the cheap wreaths you want, like we've got in the window," and from another box she dragged out one of the kind Mona had gazed at so longingly, and, without handing it to her to look at, popped it into a bag, screwed up the top, and pushed it across the counter. "One and five three," she snapped rudely, and, while Mona was extracting her eighteenpence from her purse, she turned to another attendant who had been standing looking on and listening all the time. "Miss Jones, dear, will you help me put all these boxes away." Mona noticed the sneer in her voice, the glances the two exchanged. She saw, too, Miss Jones's pitying smile and toss of her head, and she walked out of the shop with burning cheeks and a bursting heart. She longed passionately to throw down the wreath she carried and trample on it--and as for Tamlin's shop! She felt that nothing would ever induce her to set foot inside it again.