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From Behind a Counter
131


"No impudence, miss! You needn't be so short about it, or I shall report you. Let me see that tray of pink ones."

The salesgirl's lips opened, then closed in a thin, straight line. Obediently she reached into the show case and took out the tray of pink bows; but her eyes flashed, and her hands shook visibly as she set the tray down on the counter. The young woman whom she was serving picked up five bows, asked the price of four of them, then turned away with a brief:

"I see nothing I care for."

"Well," said the girl behind the counter, in a shaking voice, to the wide-eyed Pollyanna, "what do you think of my business now? Anything to be glad about there?"

Pollyanna giggled a little hysterically.

"My, wasn't she cross? But she was kind of funny, too—don't you think? Anyhow, you can be glad that—that they aren't all like her, can't you?"

"I suppose so," said the girl, with a faint smile, "But I can tell you right now, kiddie, that glad game of yours you was tellin' me about that day in the Garden may be all very well for you; but—" Once more she stopped with a tired: "Fifty cents, madam," in answer to a question from the other side of the counter.

"Are you as lonesome as ever?" asked Pollyanna wistfully, when the salesgirl was at liberty again.

"Well, I can't say I've given more'n five parties, nor been to more'n seven, since I saw you," replied