ances present
converged like wheel-spokes upon the boot in the centre of them.

"Yes, sure," resumed Mr. Penny, regarding the boot as if that alone were
his auditor; "'tis she that's come here schoolmistress. You knowed his
daughter was in training?"

"Strange, isn't it, for her to be here Christmas night, Master Penny?"

"Yes; but here she is, 'a b'lieve."

"I know how she comes here--so I do!" chirruped one of the children.

"Why?" Dick inquired, with subtle interest.

"Pa'son Maybold was afraid he couldn't manage us all to-morrow at the
dinner, and he talked o' getting her jist to come over and help him hand
about the plates, and see we didn't make pigs of ourselves; and that's
what she's come for!"

"And that's the boot, then," continued its mender imaginatively, "that
she'll walk to church in to-morrow morning. I don't care to mend boots I
don't make; but there's no knowing what it may lead to, and her father
always comes to me."

There, between the cider-mug and the candle, stood this interesting
receptacle of the little unknown's foot; and a very pretty boot it was. A
character, in fact--the flexible bend at the instep, the rounded
localities of the small nestling toes, scratches from careless scampers
now forgotten--all, as repeated in the tell-tale leather, evidencing a
nature and a bias. Dick surveyed it with a delicate feeling that he had
no right to do so without having first asked the owner of the foot's
permission.

"Now, neighbours, though no common eye can see it," the shoemaker went
on, "a man in the trade can see the likeness between this boot and that
last, although that is so deformed as hardly to recall one of God's
creatures, and this is one of as pretty a pair as you'd get for ten-and-
sixpence in Casterbridge. To you, nothing; but 'tis father's voot and
daughter's voot to me, as plain as houses."

"I don't doubt there's a likeness, Master Penny--a mild likeness--a
fantastical likeness," said Spinks. "But I han't got imagination enough
to see it, perhaps."

Mr. Penny adjusted his spectacles.

"Now, I'll tell ye what happened to me once on this very point. You used
to know Johnson the dairyman, William?"

"Ay, sure; I did."

"Well, 'twasn't opposite his house, but a little lower down--by his
paddock, in front o' Parkmaze Pool. I was a-bearing across towards
Bloom's End, and lo and behold, there was a man just brought out o' the
Pool, dead; he had un'rayed for a dip, but no