hey would have
lain under the anathema of being out of date even then. But over and
beyond the painful vintage of the shoes was the fact that Miss Smithson
had announced that all the girls taking part in the Indian Drill should
wear the same kind of shoes. She had gone farther and told the children
that the right kind of shoes could be obtained at Bryson's for a dollar
and forty-eight cents a pair, a really reduced price because fourteen
pairs were to be purchased. She had finished by giving the children the
number to be called for, "A-14116." Suzanna knew the number well; she
had repeated it mentally over and over again.

Finally Suzanna found her voice. "They're very nice, daddy," she said.

"Yes, they are very nice," he said. "See, you can turn them up. They're
as soft as a kid glove."

"Well, since you've bought the shoes," said Mrs. Procter, "and probably
at a very reasonable figure--" she paused, and Mr. Procter finished:

"Yes, they were only forty-eight cents, a remarkable bargain, I think."

"Remarkable," said Mrs. Procter, picking them up. "Why, I believe
they're a handmade shoe! Well," she went on, "since the shoes are
accounted for, I think if I have to I can quite easily manage the rest
of the outfit."

Suzanna's heart sank lower. She only wondered miserably if her mother,
seeing a piece of inexpensive goods of almost any shade, and finding a
pattern easy to manage, would make up what she thought would do quite
well for the Indian Drill costume. Then her thoughts returned to the
shoes. Perhaps after all they wouldn't fit! She was enabled by that
emancipating thought to turn a happier face to her father and again to
thank him.

But alas, the shoes fitted perfectly.

"I think," said Suzanna desperately, "that perhaps they're a little bit
too small--narrow, I mean."

"Do they hurt you?" asked her mother.

Suzanna had to confess that they didn't hurt.

"They certainly make your foot look very nice and slender," said her
father.

Well, Suzanna thought miserably, she should have to wear them, and in
that belief all interest in the Indian Drill left her. She simply
couldn't, she felt, take her lead on the eventful day wearing those
shoes. Every eye in the audience, she knew, would be fixed upon them, so
different from those of the other girls, so terribly old-fashioned, as
instinctively she sensed them to be.

Mrs. Procter carefully wrapped the bargains in the original tissue
paper. She was happy