Nevertheless, her thought was, "She hasn't killed me. I
made up my mind I wouldn't talk, and I didn't."
In the evening, as she sat in the shop primly and sternly sewing
at hats--while her mother wept in secret on the first floor, and
Constance remained hidden on the second--Sophia lived over again
the scene at the old shaft; but she lived it differently,
admitting that she had been wrong, guessing by instinct that she
had shown a foolish mistrust of love. As she sat in the shop, she
adopted just the right attitude and said just the right things.
Instead of being a silly baby she was an accomplished and dazzling
woman, then. When customers came in, and the young lady assistants
unobtrusively turned higher the central gas, according to the
regime of the shop, it was really extraordinary that they could
not read in the heart of the beautiful Miss Baines the words which
blazed there; "YOU'RE THE FINEST GIRL I EVER MET," and "I SHALL
WRITE TO YOU." The young lady assistants had their notions as to
both Constance and Sophia, but the truth, at least as regarded
Sophia, was beyond the flight of their imaginations. When eight
o'clock struck and she gave the formal order for dust-sheets, the
shop being empty, they never supposed that she was dreaming about
posts and plotting how to get hold of the morning's letters before
Mr.
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