ered Willie.

"Ah! but do you think that would be prudent of me? Don't you see, if I
were to teach you to make shoes, people would be coming to you to make
their shoes for them, and what would become of me then?"

"But I only want to make shoes for Aggy's doll. She oughtn't to go
without shoes in this weather, you know."

"Certainly not. Well, if you will bring me the doll I will take her
measure and make her a pair."

"But I don't think papa could afford to pay for shoes for a doll as well
as for all of us. You see, though it would be better, it's not necessary
that a doll should have strong shoes. She has shoes good enough for
indoors, and she needn't walk in the wet. Don't you think so yourself,
Hector?"

"But," returned Hector, "I shall be happy to make Agnes a present of a
pair of shoes for her doll. I shouldn't think of charging your papa for
that. He is far too good a man to be made to pay for everything."

"But," objected Willie, "to let you make them for nothing would be as
bad as to make papa pay for them when they are not necessary. Please,
you must let me make them for Aggy. Besides, she's not old enough yet
even to say thank you for them."

"Then she won't be old enough to say thank you to you either," said
Hector, who, all this time, had been losing no moment from his work, but
was stitching away, with a bore, and a twiddle, and a hiss, at the sole
of a huge boot.

"Ah! but you see, she's my own--so it doesn't matter!"

If I were writing a big book, instead of a little one, I should be
tempted to say not only that this set Hector a thinking, but what it
made him think as well. Instead of replying, however, he laid down his
boot, rose, and first taking from a shelf a whole skin of calf-leather,
and next a low chair from a corner of the room, he set the latter near
his own seat opposite the window.

"Sit down there, then, Willie," he said; adding, as he handed him the
calf-skin, "There's your leather, and my tools are at your service. Make
your shoes, and welcome. I shall be glad of your company."

Having thus spoken, he sat down again, caught up his boot hurriedly, and
began stitching away as if for bare life.

Willie took the calf-skin on his lap, somewhat bewildered. If he had
been asked to cut out a pair of seven-leagued boots for the ogre, there
would have seemed to his eyes enough of leather for them in that one
skin. But how ever was he to find two pieces small enough for doll's
shoes i