She knew what her trade wanted and insisted that the milliners under her should please her trade. The firm, watching the growing profits in the department, backed her with its authority.
The buyer of the department, who also bought for the ribbon department, died suddenly of heart-disease. The one-time errand girl was appointed as his successor and at his salary.
She served an apprenticeship to become a buyer. She would have become the buyer in any department where she started, simply because it was in her to succeed. She made a study of the department, its trade, and its trend. She did not pretend to trim a hat, but she could tell a customer how an undesirable hat could be made becoming, and then from the customer she went to the milliner and had the change made. Some day she will own a shop, and no forewoman, milliner or trimmer will be able to waste her stock or distate the policy of her establishment.
And that brings us to the common mistake of the woman with a little capital.
"My husband died recently, leaving me three thousand dollars in life insurance. I want to invest at least half of it in some sort of business. We have no good millinery store in this town. How shall I start one?"
Any number of pitiful little tragedies of
