Page:Live and Let Live.djvu/113

Rh hands, you know; and besides, her shoes have holes in them, and her feet are wet."

"My dear, if girls will go out with ragged shoes, they must expect wet feet. Why did not you change your shoes, Lucy?"

"I have no others, ma'am."

"Then pray buy a pair the first time you go out; but, in the mean time, look in my closet; you will find a basket there with half a dozen pairs' more or less worn—take them all, if they suit you." "Oh, thank you, ma'am! May I give a pair to mother, Mrs. Ardley?"

"What an idea! Your mother wear my shoes! did you ever notice my foot, child?"

"Yes, ma'am, but mother's is very small too; and noise troubles father so much that a pair of light shoes will be a great comfort."

"Do what you like with them, child, you are both welcome to them. But don't let me see you with holes in your shoes. If there is anything I can't put up with, it is an untidy-looking servant. That's just the way," continued Mrs. Ardley, after Lucy had gone in quest of the shoes, "servants never provide themselves with walking-shoes, and they go spattering about in the wet, and then bark, bark all winter—it is too annoying to hear them." Poor Lucy, the immediate cause of this denunciation, having, before earned, predestined every cent of her wages to her mother's necessities, had looked with dismay upon her decaying shoes. If the generosity with which Mrs. Ardley had lavished half a dozen pairs of but half-worn delicate kid shoes upon Lucy had provided her with a single pair of stout walking-shoes, the child would