"
"Ah, that's all very well for YOU," Melissa answered, with a
rather envious air. "You can see these things any day. But for us
the chance comes only once in a lifetime, and we must make the most
of it."
Well, in such converse as this we reached Liverpool in due time,
and went next morning on board our steamer. We had a lovely passage
out, and, all the way, the more we saw of Melissa the more we liked
her. To be sure, Lucy received a terrible shock the third day out,
when she asked Melissa what she meant to do when she returned to
Kansas City. "You won't go into the post-office again, I suppose,
dear?" she said, kindly, for we had got by that time on most friendly
terms with our little Melissa.
"I guess not," Melissa answered. "No such luck any more. I'll have
to go back again to the store as usual."
"The store!" Lucy repeated, bewildered. "I --I don't quite understand
you."
"Well, the shop, I presume you'd call it," Melissa answered, smiling.
"My father's gotten a book-store in Kansas City, and before I went
into the post-office I helped him at the counter; in fact, I was
his saleswoman."
"I assure you, Vernon," Lucy remarked, in our berth that night,
"if an Englishwoman had said it to me, I'd have been obliged to
apologise to her for having forced her to confess it, and I don't
know what way I should ever have looked to hide my face while she was
talking about it.
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