h hands resting on his cane, he sat
opposite the shoemaker, who had just examined the slippers, and said
that they could be mended so as to look very well, only that a part of
the embroidery would be lost.

"Spare as much of it as you can," pleaded the little gentleman. "They
were my dead wife's last birthday gift; she worked them herself. I have
worn them constantly for five years; but I step so lightly that I don't
wear out many shoes. I suppose I am your worst customer," he added,
with an apologetic smile.

"That is of no consequence, Herr Koenig," replied the shoemaker; "it is
always an honor as well as a pleasure to work for you and your family,
not only on account of the high instep which you all have, but because
you are an artist and have an eye for shape. As for the durableness of
the shoes, that is not your fault, but the fault of the leather. But
wait till your daughter goes to balls. Good work is of no avail then,
Herr Koenig; dancing shoes which are not as delicate and as easily
broken as poppy-leaves, do the shoemaker no credit."

The little gentleman shook his head thoughtfully.

"My daughter, I fear, will give you little opportunity to earn money in
that article," said he, "She has no desire for any of the seemly
amusements which I would willingly grant her; her mind is filled with
her work and her father; she can't be induced to attend to anything
else."

"Well, well," said the shoemaker, drawing from his jacket a little
silver snuff-box, which he offered the artist, "those things will come
as a matter of course. Young ladies always have some peculiarities, you
know; they do not forget the mother; but women are women, Herr Koenig,
and there is no virtue in youth. True, you yourself still wear crape
around your hat; in your case constancy may be in the blood. But wait a
while. The will, Herr Koenig, is master; the perception weak; of how
weak it is, we have sometimes little idea."

"You are mistaken," replied the other, fixing his eyes which wore a
quiet, thoughtful expression upon the floor. "She has become perfectly
cheerful again, and I also, though every day I still miss my dead wife.
God does not like to see discontented faces, He has made the world too
beautiful for that. The crape--yes, I have kept it on my hat. Why
should I take it off, and when? It would seem very strange to me, to
say to myself on a certain day: From this time things shall no longer
be as they were yesterday; I will now