to the ground, observed a dainty pair of red shoes tripping
lightly by his side. "What! little Mabel?"

"I just wanted to leave when you would leave, Caspar. For there was
nobody on all the green I cared for so much as you."

Ah, this time he did believe her,--poor Caspar! And so he must tell her
all _his_ secret. "I love you, little Mabel, oh so much! And oh, if some
day you could marry me, I should keep you in darling little crimson
shoes all your life! And who knows--perhaps through your love Mabel--I
might grow better-looking. They said my godmother promised it."

"I love you as you are, plain or handsome, you dear, good Caspar," cried
little Mabel, "and I will marry you just as soon as my mother, Dame
Dimity, gives her consent!"

Alas! True love is ever doomed to be crossed, else this little tale of
ours had been a good deal shorter; had, perhaps, even ended here!

Dame Dimity would on _no_ account yield her consent to the union of her
daughter, the beauty of the town, with the cobbler of Cobweb Corner.
Why, if it came to that, there was Christopher Clogs, the wooden
shoemaker, who was a good figure and a wealthy man to boot! He lived in
the Market Place, and drove a thriving business, whilst Caspar was known
to have only one coat to his back. Really the effrontery of Cobweb
Corner was astounding!

Poor Mabel's eyes were now often dimmed with tears; yet once every day
she passed through the narrow street near the castle wall, and gazed up
at Caspar's gable-window, until she saw the little shoemaker smile down
at her. After she had vanished, Caspar would feel very lonely; yet he
said to himself, "When I want to see her blue eyes, then I must look at
the sky. She'll always have blue eyes, and she'll always be _my Mabel_."

These days Caspar rarely left his workshop in the old garret. He was
very poor, and had nothing to buy with; so he went to no shops, and he
avoided the neighbours, as they were beginning to make merry about him,
and Mabel, and Dame Dimity. He could not bear to hear them say that
Mabel was betrothed to Christie Clogs, the wooden shoemaker. Anything
but that!

When he had nobody to talk to, why, he opened his window to converse
with the swallows, and asked them every evening what was the news--for
Caspar could not afford to take in a newspaper.

"Oh, what do you think!" they cried one night, swirling round his head
in circles, as their custom was, "here is something to interest you,
Caspar!