; and after all, in a
week or ten days you will have mastered the rules, and the difficulty
will be over. You wouldn't make a fuss for one week, would you? Stay!
There is one thing I _can_ tell you now, and that is that you won't be
allowed to wear those slippers any longer. I'll give you an order, and
you can go downstairs to the bureau and get a pair of school shoes like
the other girls wear."

Rhoda gasped with dismay.

"What! Those frightful things with square toes and no heels! Those
awful tubs that Thomasina waddles about in!"

Miss Everett laughed gaily. She was only a girl herself, and she cast a
quick glance up and down the corridor to see if any one were coming
before she drew aside her skirt to exhibit her own flat feet.

"They _are_ awful! I love pretty shoes, too; and the first time I wore
these I--I _cried_! I was very home-sick, you see, and nervous and
anxious about my work, and it seemed the last straw. Never mind! it's
only a little thing, and on Thursday you shall wear your very best pair
and I'll wear mine, and we'll compare notes and see which is the
prettier."

To say that Rhoda adored her is to state the matter feebly. She could
have knelt down in the passage and kissed the ugly little feet; she
could have done homage before this young mistress as before a saint;
when the light streamed out of a window and rested on her head, it
seemed to take the form of a halo!

She went meekly downstairs, procured the shoes, and carried them into
Dorothy's cubicle, to display before the eyes of that horrified young
woman.

"There! We've got to wear those, too! It's the rule. Miss Everett
told me, and gave me an order to get them. You had better ask her for
one before Thomasina gets a chance."

Dorothy looked at her solemnly, and measured the slipper against her own
neat shoe; then she took off the latter and held the two side by side.
One was arched and slim, the other flat and square; one had French heels
and little sparkling buckles, the other was of dull leather, unrelieved
by any trace of ornament.

"Here's deggeradation!" she sighed hopelessly. "Here's deggeradation!"

CHAPTER SEVEN.

THE RECORD WALL.

There was no end to the surprises of that wonderful school! When Rhoda
returned to her cubicle to get "tidy" for dinner, she washed, brushed
her hair, put an extra pin in her tie to make sure that it was straight,
wriggled round before the glass to see that belt and bodice