Perhaps it's better for the help to not come from someone she considers a friend? She doesn't know Amelia very well, so maybe that makes it easier? Or, perhaps, it's that she just doesn't want to burden anyone and the open offer from a stranger is easier to blow off?

Whether she heard it not, the lack of comment on it is appreciated. "I didn't worry about bargaining too much, though I couldn't stop myself completely. It's in my nature to haggle over everything."

It's comforting, to speak with someone who's a relative stranger about things that don't really matter. It reminds her of the days when she was just a shop hand at her family's business, when all she had to really think about was shooting the breeze until they bought something or she sent them away when another customer came in.