No doubt gossip may be very interesting to you , but I am accustomed to having a clerk pay some small attention to my requirements . If you can not attend to your business , I shall go to the floor walker and ask him to direct me to somebody who can . The laziness and disobligingness of the girls in this store is really getting beyond endurance . '' A passionate answer was on the point of Marcella 's tongue . All her bitterness and suffering and resentment flashed into her face and eyes . For one moment she was determined to speak out , to repay Mrs. Liddell 's insolence in kind . A retort was ready to her hand . Everyone knew that Mrs. Liddell , before her marriage to a wealthy man , had been a working girl . What could be easier than to say contemptuously : `` You should be a judge of a clerk 's courtesy and ability , madam . You were a shop girl yourself once ? '' But if she said it , what would follow ? Prompt and instant dismissal . And Patty ? The thought of the little sister quelled the storm in Marcella 's soul . For Patty 's sake she must control her temper -- and she did . With an effort that left her white and tremulous she crushed back the hot words and said quietly : `` I beg your pardon , Mrs. Liddell . I did not mean to be inattentive . Let me show you some of our new lingerie waists , I think you will like them . '' But Mrs. Liddell did not like the new lingerie waists which Marcella brought to her in her trembling hands . For another half hour she examined and found fault and sneered .
Then she swept away with the scornful remark that she did n't see a thing there that was fit XXXXX wear , and she would go to Markwell Bros. and see if they had anything worth looking at .
For If before beyond in into of on that to