Winnie Childs, the Shop Girl

								


Produced by Ronald Holder and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

WINNIE CHILDS
THE SHOP GIRL
BY
C.N. & A.M. WILLIAMSON
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
Made in the United States of America

1914, 1916, by C.N. & A.M. WILLIAMSON

CONTENTS
Chapter
I. THE DRYAD DOOR
II. BALM OF GILEAD
III. AN ILL WIND
IV. THE KINDNESS OF MISS ROLLS
V. SCENES FOR A "MOVIE"
VI. THE HANDS WITH THE RINGS
VII. THE TWO PETERS
VIII. No. 2884
IX. THE TEST OF CHARACTER
X. PETER ROLLS'S LITTLE WAYS
XI. DEVIL TAKE THE HINDMOST
XII. BLUE PETER
XIII. ONE MAN AND ANOTHER
XIV. FROM SCYLLA TO CHARYBDIS
XV. THE LADY IN THE MOON
XVI. THE SEED ENA PLANTED
XVII. TOYLAND
XVIII. THE BIG BLUFF
XIX. "YES" TO ANYTHING
XX. THE CLOSED HOUSE
XXI. THE TELEPHONE
XXII. THE FRAGRANCE OF FRESIAS
XXIII. MOTHER
XXIV. THINGS EXPLODING
XXV. A PIECE OF HER MIND
XXVI. WHEN THE SECRET CAME OUT
XXVII. THE BATTLE

THE SHOP GIRL

THE SHOP GIRL
CHAPTER I
THE DRYAD DOOR

It was a horrible day at sea, horrible even on board the new and
splendid Monarchic. All the prettiest people had disappeared from
the huge dining-saloon. They had turned green, and then faded away,
one by one or in hurried groups; and now the very thought of music at
meals made them sick, in ragtime.
Peter Rolls was never sick in any time or in any weather, which was
his one disagreeable, superior-to-others trick. Most of his qualities
were likable, and he was likable, though a queer fellow in some ways,
said his best friends--the ones who called him "Petro." When the ship
played that she was a hobby-horse or a crab (if that is the creature
which shares with elderly Germans a specialty for walking from side to
side), also a kangaroo, and occasionally a boomerang, Peter Rolls did
not mind.
He was sorry for the men and girls he knew, including his sister, who
lay in deck chairs pretending to be rugs, or who went to bed and
wished themselves in their peaceful graves. But for himself, the wild
turmoil of the waves filled him with sympathetic restlessness. It had
never occurred to Peter that he was imaginative, yet he seemed to
know what the white-faced storm was saying, and to want to shout an
answer.
The second morning out (the morning after the Monarchic had to pass
Queenstown without taking on the mails or putting off enraged
passengers) Peter thought he would go to the gymnasium and work up an
appetite for luncheon. He had looked in the first day, and had seen a
thing which could give you all the sensations and benefits of a camel
ride across the desert. He had ridden camels in real deserts and liked
them. Now he did not see why waves should not answer just as well as
dunes, and was looking forward to the experiment; but he must have
been absent-minded, for when he opened what ought to have been the
gymnasium door, it was not the gymnasium door. It was--good