The cook and steward accepted her orders concerning the daily marketing and he and she audited the monthly bills.

The white house by the shore was a different place altogether now and "chicken-pox tablecloths" and tarnished silver were things of the forgotten past.

At the store she had become almost a silent partner, and Hamilton and Company's "emporium" was, thanks to her judgment and tact, if not yet an up-to-date establishment, at least a shop where commodities to be sold were in places where they might be seen by prospective purchasers and readily located by the proprietors.
She spent a good deal of her time, except in school hours, at the store and much of the buying as well as the selling was done by her.

The drummers representing New York and Boston wholesale houses knew her and cherished keen respect for her abilities as a selector and purchaser of goods.
"Say," said one of these gentlemen, after a lengthy session during which his attempts to work off several "stickers" had been frustrated by Mary-'Gusta's common sense and discernment--"Say, that girl of yours is a wonder, do you know it?
She's the sharpest buyer I ever run across on my trips down here.

I don't take a back seat for anybody when it comes to selling goods, and there's mighty little I can't sell; but I can't bluff her.