“Miss Claxon--I Stan' corrected,” pursued the shoeman. “If Miss Claxon will do me the fava just to try on this slippa, I sh'd be able to tell at the next place I stopped just how it looked on a lady's foot. I see you a'n't any of you disposed to buy 'em this aftanoon, 'and I a'n't complainin'; you done pootty well by me, already, and I don't want to uhge you; but I do want to carry away the picture, in my mind's eye--what you may call a mental photograph--of this slipper on the kind of a foot it was made for, so't I can praise it truthfully to my next customer. What do you say, ma'am?” he addressed himself with profound respect to Clementina. “Oh, do let him, Clem!” said one of the girls, and another pleaded, “Just so he needn't tell a story to his next customa,” and that made the rest laugh. Clementina's heart was throbbing, and joyous lights were dancing in her eyes. “I don't care if I do,” she said, and she stooped to unlace her shoe, but one of the big girls threw herself on her knees at her feet to prevent her. Clementina remembered too late that there was a hole in her stocking and that her little toe came through it, but she now folded the toe artfully down, and the big girl discovered the hole in time to abet her attempt at concealment. She caught the slipper from the shoeman and harried it on; she tied the ribbons across the instep, and then put on the other. “Now put out youa foot, Clem! Fast dancin' position!” She leaned back upon her own heels, and Clementina daintily lifted the edge of her skirt a little, and peered over at her feet. The slippers might or might not have been of an imperfect taste, in their imitation of the prevalent fashion, but on Clementina's feet they had distinction. “Them feet was made for them slippas,” said the shoeman devoutly. The clerk was silent; he put his hand helplessly to his mouth, and then dropped it at his side again. Gregory came round the corner of the building from the dining-room, and the big girl who was crouching before Clementina, and who boasted that she was not afraid of the student, called saucily to him, “Come here, a minute, Mr. Gregory,” and as he approached, she tilted aside, to let him see Clementina's slippers. Clementina beamed up at him with all her happiness in her eyes, but after a faltering instant, his face reddened through its freckles, and he gave her a rebuking frown and passed on. “Well, I decla'e!” said the big girl. Fane turned uneasily, and said with a sigh, he guessed he must be going, now. A blight fell upon the gay spirits of the group, and the shoeman asked with an ironical glance after Gregory's retreating figure, “Owna of this propaty?” “No, just the ea'th,” said the big girl, angrily. The voice of Clementina made itself heard with a cheerfulness which had apparently suffered no chill, but was really a rising rebellion. “How much ah' the slippas?” “Three dollas,” said the shoeman in a surprise which he could not conceal at Clementina's courage.