atching this Cinderella play with a good deal of interest, and wishing
he had been the prince to fit the slipper instead of Jack, said to
Eloise, "I think it better for you to keep them. Miss Amy will not like
to have them returned, and if they were, she'd give them to some one
else, or very likely send them to the Rummage Sale we are to have in
town."

"That's so," Mrs. Biggs chimed in. "There is to be a rummage sale, and
Ruby Ann has spoke for Tim's old clothes and mine, especially our shoes.
Keep 'em by all means."

Eloise was beginning to feel faint again, and tired with all this talk
and excitement, and painfully conscious that Howard's eyes were dancing
with laughter at the sight of her feet,--one swollen to three times its
natural size and pushed into Mrs. Biggs's old felt shoe, and the other
in Miss Amy's white satin slipper.

"Oh, I wish you would take it off!" she gasped, feeling unequal to
leaning forward again, and closing her eyes wearily.

She meant Mrs. Biggs, but Jack forestalled that good woman, and in an
instant had the slipper off and the boot on, doing both so gently that
she was not hurt at all.

"Thanks!" Eloise said, drawing her well foot under the spotted calico,
and wishing the young men would go.

How long they would have staid is uncertain if there had not come a
second knock at the kitchen door. This time it was really Mr. Bills, and
Mrs. Biggs went out to meet him, while Eloise felt every nerve quiver
with dread. She must see him and tell him how impossible it would be for
her to commence her duties on Monday. Perhaps he would dismiss her
altogether, and take another in her place, and then--"What shall I do?"
she thought, and, scarcely knowing what she said, she cried, "Oh, I
can't bear it!" while the tears rolled down her cheeks, and Howard and
Jack gathered close to her,--the laugh all gone from Howard's eyes, and
a great pity shining in Jack's.

"Excuse me," she continued, "I don't mean to be childish, but everything
is so dreadful! I don't mind the pain so much; but to be here away from
home, and to lose the school, as I may, and--and,--I want a handkerchief
to wipe my face,--and this is ruined."

She said this last as she took from her satchel the handkerchief which
had been so white and clean when she left home, and which now was wet
and stained from a bottle of shoe blacking which had come uncorked and
saturated everything. She had borne a great deal, and, as is often the
ca