"You need not smash _all_ the china!" observed Dick.
"The parcels post never comes so early," murmured Dorothy's mother. "How
impulsive that child is!"
In a few minutes Dorothy came back with a crestfallen air and laid a
brown, uninteresting-looking envelope by her mother's plate.
"I might have known he never comes so early, except with letters," she
remarked, sitting down again.
"Of course you might," said Dick, clearing the bacon dish, "but you
never know anything worth knowing."
"Don't tease her," said Mrs. Graham kindly; "it is not often she gets a
new frock."
"A _costume_," corrected Dick, imitating Dorothy's voice. "A _real_
tailor one--made in Bond Street!"
Mr. Graham rustled his newspaper, and Dick succumbed.
"Why, Dorothy!" Mrs. Graham was looking at her letter. "Dear me!" She
ran her eyes quickly through its contents. "I'm afraid that costume
won't come to-day. They've had a fire."
[Sidenote: A Fire in Bond Street]
"'Prescott's, Bond Street,'" said Mr. Graham, reading from a paragraph
in the morning paper. "Here it is: 'A fire occurred yesterday afternoon
in the ladies' tailoring department. The stock-room was gutted, but
fortunately the assistants escaped without injury.'"
Dorothy, with a very long face, was reading over her mother's shoulder:
"In consequence of a fire in the tailoring department Messrs. Prescott
beg to inform their customers that some delay will be caused in getting
out this week's orders.
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