“They are pretty enough to eat,” said Miss Dare,—“and oh! Rosie, your own flowers on the toe, hand-painted, as I’m a living sinner.” Sure enough they were; the palest, most transparent flowers that ever bloomed, but still pink roses with their setting of green leaves, upon each tiny toe. It was as if the maker had dreamed of a rose as he worked, and the treacherous little slippers had betrayed him. “They’re just lovely, and it’s a perfectly new style. I wonder where he got them,” continued Miss Dare. “Who is he, Pinks? and how came he to send you _slippers_?” “Oh! he’s only a boy, Virgie; he didn’t know any better.” “Very good taste for a boy, if he _must_ send _slippers_. That box is too cute for anything. Eh! oh! Pinkie, NO! It _isn’t_ your cousin’s co-operative friend, the little shoemaker!” “He’s _not_ little, _any_way,” murmured Pinkie guiltily, but stanchly. Miss Dare stared blankly at her bosom friend for a moment; then a singular spasm passed over her high-bred, aquiline countenance. She covered her face with her hands, and shook with visible emotion; then, suddenly slipping to the floor, laid her head upon an ottoman and howled with mirth. “Oh! Pinks!” she gasped, “I’m certainly going to die! Slippers!—Great Cæsar!—Were he a dairyman, he’d woo thee with pats of butter!” “What’s that?” said a voice from the door; whereat it would be hard to say which girlish heart gave the quickest throb of terror. For there, beyond the swaying _portière_, stood, not merely Mr. Randolph, which would have been bad enough in all conscience, but also Frank, Pinkie’s only remaining brother, since Harry had died at college—some said from overwork, others from over-pleasure. “That’s a very graceful attitude, Miss Virgie,” said the papa genially, as Miss Dare sprang to her feet; “why change it? How are you? well, if your cheeks speak truly. And you, my little girl, many happy returns of the day. May you never be less happy and light-hearted than you are now. It did my heart good to hear your hearty laugh as I came up the stairs.” “It was Virgie laughing, not I,” said Pinkie, resolving savagely in her young mind that _her_ house, when she should have one, should have uncarpeted stairs, and not a _portière_ from cellar to garret. “And what she was laughing at, I’m sure I can’t tell. You must ask her.” “Prices’ wagon left a package for you,” observed Frank grimly; “I suppose it was _that_,” pointing disdainfully to the box in Pinkie’s hand. “_This?_” Henry Randolph, still with his genial smile, suddenly became aware of the dainty object, took and opened it. “Very pretty indeed,” he said cheerfully; “but they’ll break all to pieces if they indulge in shoe-boxes in this style; and you will be short of pocket-money for a month or more, you extravagant child.” “I fear you don’t exactly grasp the situation, sir,” said Frank with fine scorn; “she won’t waste any pocket-money on those things. It’s a birthday present.”