n slippers. Certainly Alma's tiny foot and slender ankle
was a delightful object to contemplate as she turned it this way and
that before the little mirror.

"If you had a little buckle, miss--we have some very new rhinestone
ornaments--I'd like to show you one--a butterfly set in a fan of silver
lace. Just a moment."

Before Nancy could stop her the saleswoman had gone.

"We won't get the buckles, you dear old thing," Alma said consolingly,
bending the sole of her foot. "We'll just look at them."

Nancy smiled wryly.

"I'd _like_ to get you everything in the shop--I hate to be stingy with
you, dear; it's just this old thing," and she held up the shabby purse.

"_Isn't_ that perfectly gorgeous?" shrieked Alma, as the saleswoman
held a little jewelled dragon-fly, poised on a spray of silver lace,
against her instep.

"Gorgeous," echoed Nancy.

"It's a very chic trimming--of course we use it only on the handsomer
slippers," chanted the saleswoman. "Now, we could put that on for you
in five minutes, and really the expense would be small, considering
that nothing more would be needed as an ornament, and it would be the
smartest thing to wear--no trimming on the dress whatever."

"How much would it be?" asked Alma. "I--I can't take it now, but
later----"

"The buckles are five dollars, and with the lace fan it would come to
seven. I would advise you--the prices will go up in another month----"

"Well, Alma----" Nancy hesitated, made one last frantic grasp at her
fleeting prudence and surrendered. "Fourteen dollars. All right. You
can take the buckles as a Christmas present from me. I'll pay for
those, and we'll be back for them after we've got some other things."

"Nancy, you angel! You lamb! You duck! You angelic dumpling!" crowed
Alma. "I never felt so absolutely luxurious in all my life."

"I don't imagine you ever did," remarked Nancy; she was aghast at her
own extravagance. She judged herself harshly as the victim of the
failing which she had so long combatted in her mother and sister.
Every atom of the prudence with which she had armed herself seemed to
be melting away like wax before a furnace. She had already spent
forty-four dollars, and there was still the silver ribbon to be bought,
which would bring the sum up to forty-five at the very least. She had
originally intended to buy one or two small items with which to freshen
up her own dress for the dance, but she stubbornly put aside