Jerry lifted eyes dark with laughter. She did not look in the least "perfectly miserable." "I--I--can't!" She put out the tips of her unstockinged toes. Then she told him how she had had to wear Gyp's pumps. "And they hurt so dreadfully that I slipped them off and now _nothing'll_ get them back on. I guess I've got to stay here the rest of my life." There was something so refreshing in Jerry's frankness and unaffectedness that Dana King sat down eagerly beside her. "Let me sit here and talk, then. Say, what on earth was the matter with you the night of the debate? Was it your shoes--_then_? You _could_ have talked--I know!" He spoke with such conviction that Jerry's eyes shone. "No, it wasn't--entirely--my shoes. Something _did_ happen--but I can't tell. Isn't this the jolliest party? I never went to one before--like this. There aren't this many people in all Miller's Notch." Isobel, watching Jerry's corner, grew very angry when she saw that Dana King lingered with Jerry. She wondered what on earth Jerry could be saying that made him laugh so heartily; they were acting as though they had known one another all their lives. Just as Dana King was asking Jerry what she would do if the midnight hour struck and found her slipperless, Mrs. Allan discovered them. _She_ had to hear about the pumps, too. "You blessed child, I'll get a pair of Pat's--they'd fit anything!" She returned in a few moments, two shiny, patent-leather toes protruding from the folds of her spangled scarf. Pat's pumps slipped easily over Jerry's poor swollen feet. "There, now, Cinderella, let's go and get some ice cream." And Dana King led Jerry through the dancers, past Isobel and a fat boy whose curly red head only reached to her shoulder, to the dining-room where, around small tables, boys and girls were devouring all sorts of goodies. The party was spoiled for Isobel; not so for Gyp who, besides having had the jolliest sort of a time herself, was bursting with satisfaction because Jerry had "captured" the most popular boy in the room. "He sat out _six_ dances with you--I counted! He took you to _supper_ I heard him ask you, Jerry Travis, if you were going out to the school Frolic. And why did he call you Cinderella?" asked Gyp as the young people rode homeward. Jerry had no intention of telling Isobel of the ignominy of the pumps, so she answered evasively: "Because it was my first party, I guess," then, with a long, happy sigh, she cuddled back against Gyp's shoulder and watched the street lamps flash past. Oh, surely the Wishing-rock had opened a wonderful new world to little Jerry! "Did you tell him it _was_ your first party?" "Yes. Why?" "Oh--nothing. _I_ wouldn't have been honest 'nough to--I'd have pretended I'd gone to lots." "_I'm_ not going to the Frolic," Isobel broke in. "I'm too old for such things." Gyp straightened indignantly. "Too old to coast? Well, I hope _I_ never grow as old as _that_!" she cried.