can.

By some such process did the Individual, a passage of whose biography I
am now giving you, endeavor to repair the ravages of time and toil. In
so far as she succeeded in making the crooked places straight and the
rough places plain, her efforts may be said to have been crowned with
success. It is but fair to add, however, that the result did not
inspire her with so much confidence but that she determined to lay by
the boots for a while, reserving them for such times as they should be
most needed, with a vague hope also that rest might exercise some
wonderful recuperative power.

About five days after this, they were again brought out, to do duty on
a long walk. The event was most mournful. The flannel-silk gave at
the first fire. The soles rolled themselves again in a most
uncomfortable manner. At every step, the foot had to be put forward,
placed on the ground, and then drawn back. The walk was an agony. It
so happened that on our return, without any intention, we came out of
woods in the immediate vicinity of the shoemaker's aforesaid, and the
Individual was quite sure she heard the sound of his hammer. She
remembered that, when she was young and at school, she was familiar
with a certain "wardrobe" which was generally so bulging-full of
clothes that the doors could not, by any fair, straightforward means,
be shut; but if you sprang upon them suddenly, taking them unawares, as
it were, and when they were off their guard, you could sometimes effect
a closure. She determined to try this plan on the shoemaker. So she
bade the rest of the party go on, while she turned off in the direction
of the hammering. She went straight into the shop, without knocking,
the door being ajar. There he was at it, sure enough.

"Your tools have come!" she exclaimed, with ill-concealed exultation.
"Now, will you mend my shoes?"

"Well, I don't know as I can, hardly. I'm pretty much in a hurry.
What with moving and haying, I've got a little behindhand."

"Oh! but you must mend them, because I am going up on the mountain
tomorrow, and I have no others to wear, and I am afraid of the snakes;
so you see, you must."

"Got 'em here?"

Individual furtively works off the best one, and picks it up,--while
his eyes are bent on his work,--as if she had only dropped it, and
hands it to him. He takes it, turns it over, pulls it, knocks it, with
an evident intention of understanding the subject thoroughly.

"Rather a haggard