Miss Smithson had had years of experience with children. She knew their sensitiveness, their capacity for suffering through those incidents which adults term trifles. She had questioned Suzanna with much adroit delicacy concerning the shoes, and had elicited the story of the father's purchase. Though she read correctly the child's real shrinking from the thought of being the cynosure of many amused eyes, she felt herself helpless. That one odd pair of shoes in the company of participating children! In imagination Miss Smithson visualized the unsuccessful efforts of their owner to hide them, to find her place in the background. The kind-hearted teacher really suffered in her anticipation of Suzanna's pain. So when the great night arrived and the music sounded the approach of the Indian maidens, Miss Smithson, sitting in the front row beside Suzanna's parents, kept her eyes steadfastly lowered. At length, not hearing the expected titters from children in the audience, she found her courage and looked up. Her eyes were immediately drawn to Suzanna's face and rested there. For pictured there in place of depression, self-pity, troubling self-consciousness, she found sparkle and joy. Miss Smithson gasped in astonishment and relief. With perfect abandon Suzanna moved through the dance; she seemed as one quite set apart from her companions; and so she was. All that Drusilla had told her lived with her, inspiring her, lifting her beyond mere mortals. She might have been frolicing upon a cloud in her little bare feet, so far away from her consciousness was the thought of the shoes. The dance ended, and with flushed cheeks and heart beating happily, Suzanna took her seat. The applause lasted a long time. Then came a recitation and a piano solo given by a greatly embarrassed boy, though certainly a greatly talented one. Suzanna recognizing his anguish felt very sorry for him. She wished he had had a Drusilla to advise him, to make him see that he was for the time greater than his audience. That he had music in his soul. She understood now that the greatest gift was to forget yourself and love your art so much that it reigned supreme. Then looking out at the people seated before her, she recognized that they were _kind_. That they had come not to criticize, but to enjoy and to acclaim. She felt growing within her heart a great love for all humanity. Her eyes sought out her father's. Just in front he sat, looking up at her, his eyes filled with pride. She had made him happy. Her heart was very full. Her eyes after a time went again over the audience. And behind her father sat a boy, the one she had seen at Drusilla's. His eyes seemed to be searching her face. She smiled at him and he smiled in return. The evening was over. Suzanna was down in the audience. "Did you like the dance, daddy?" she asked.