as saying t'other day that a sight of you was better 'n a dose
of medicine."

In the Bon Ton Store she found Guy Pollock tentatively buying a modest
gray scarf. "We haven't seen you for so long," she said. "Wouldn't you
like to come in and play cribbage, some evening?" As though he meant it,
Pollock begged, "May I, really?"

While she was purchasing two yards of malines the vocal Raymie
Wutherspoon tiptoed up to her, his long sallow face bobbing, and he
besought, "You've just got to come back to my department and see a pair
of patent leather slippers I set aside for you."

In a manner of more than sacerdotal reverence he unlaced her boots,
tucked her skirt about her ankles, slid on the slippers. She took them.

"You're a good salesman," she said.

"I'm not a salesman at all! I just like elegant things. All this is so
inartistic." He indicated with a forlornly waving hand the shelves of
shoe-boxes, the seat of thin wood perforated in rosettes, the display of
shoe-trees and tin boxes of blacking, the lithograph of a smirking
young woman with cherry cheeks who proclaimed in the exalted poetry of
advertising, "My tootsies never got hep to what pedal perfection was
till I got a pair of clever classy Cleopatra Shoes."

"But sometimes," Raymie sighed, "there is a pair of dainty little shoes
like these, and I set them aside for some one who will appreciate. When
I saw these I said right away, 'Wouldn't it be nice if they fitted Mrs.
Kennicott,' and I meant to speak to you first chance I had. I haven't
forgotten our jolly talks at Mrs. Gurrey's!"

That evening Guy Pollock came in and, though Kennicott instantly
impressed him into a cribbage game, Carol was happy again.

V

She did not, in recovering something of her buoyancy, forget her
determination to begin the liberalizing of Gopher Prairie by the easy
and agreeable propaganda of teaching Kennicott to enjoy reading poetry
in the lamplight. The campaign was delayed. Twice he suggested that they
call on neighbors; once he was in the country. The fourth evening
he yawned pleasantly, stretched, and inquired, "Well, what'll we do
tonight? Shall we go to the movies?"

"I know exactly what we're going to do. Now don't ask questions! Come
and sit down by the table. There, are you comfy? Lean back and forget
you're a practical man, and listen to me."

It may be that she had been influenced by the managerial Vida Sherwin;
certainly she sounded as though she was selli