The subject of Gresham was a painful one; and Johnny felt his blundering bluntness keenly.
"There isn't any Gresham," laughingly asserted Polly.

"There never was any Gresham.

Let's go to Coney Island to-night." Both Constance and Johnny gave Polly a silent but sincere vote of thanks.
Willis Lofty, who continued the progressive fortune of his father by prowling about the vast establishment with a microscopic eye, approached Polly with more than a shopkeeper's alacrity.
"You promised to send for me to be your clerk the next time you came in," he chided her.
"I didn't come in this time," she gaily returned.

"Mr.Gamble is the customer," and she introduced Constance and the two gentlemen.

"Mr.
Gamble wants to buy a silk shawl for a blue-eyed mother with gray wavy hair and baby-pink cheeks." "There are a lot of pretty shawls here," Constance added, "but none of them seems quite good enough for this kind of a mother." Young Lofty, himself looking more like a brisk and natty college youth who had come in to buy a gift for his own mother than the successful business man he was, glanced at the embarrassed Johnny with thorough understanding.
"I think I know what you want," he said pleasantly; and, calling a boy, he gave him some brief instructions.