TWO LITTLE WOODEN SHOES.
heads and their failing eyesight, and the chil-
dren dropped great tears on the bobbins, be-
cause they had come out without a crust to
break their fast.
She had been sad there often for others, but
she had never been dullnot with this unfa-
miliar, desolate, dreary dullness, that seemed to
take all the mirth out of the busy life around
her, and all the color out of the blue sky above.
Why, she had no idea herself. She wondered
if she were going to be ill; the had never been
ill in her life, being strong as a little bird that
has never known cage or captivity.
When the day was done, Bbe gave a quick
sigh as she looked across the square. She had
so wanted to tell him that she was not ungrate-
ful; and she had a little moss-rose ready, with
a sprig of sweet-brier, and a tiny spray of
maiden-hair fern that grew under the willows,
which she had kept covered up with a leaf of
sycamore all the day long.
No one would have it now.
The child went out of the place sadly, as the
carillon rang. There was only the moss-rose in
her basket, and the red and white currants that
had been given her for her dinner.
She went along the twisting, many-colored,
quaintly-fashioned streets, till she came to the
water-side.
It is very ancient there still; there are all
manner of old buildings, black and brown and
gray, peaked roofs, gabled windows, arched
doors, crumbling bridges, twisted galleries
leaning to touch the dark surface of the canal,
dusky wharves crowded with barrels,, and
bales, and cattle, and timber, and all the va-
rious freightage that the good ships come and
go with all the year round, to and from the
Zuyder-Zee, and the Baltic water, and the wild
Northumbrian shores, and the iron-bound Scot-
tish headlands, and the pretty gray Norman
seaports, and the white sandy dunes of Hol-
land, with the toy towns and the straight pop-
"lir trpps
Bbe' was fond of watching the brigs and
barges, that looked so big to her, with their
national flags flying, and their tall masts stand-
ing thick as grass, and their tawny sails flapping
in the wind, and about them the sweet, strong
smell of that strange, unknown thing, the sea.
Sometimes the sailors would talk with her;
sometimes some old salt, sitting astride of a
cask, would tell her a mariner's tale of far-away
lands and mysteries of the deep; sometimes
some curly-headed cabin-boy would give her a
shell or a plume of sea-weed, and try and make
her understand what the wonderful wild water
was like, which was not quiet and sluggish and
dusky as this canal was, but was forever chang-
ing and moving, and curling and leaping, and
making itself now blue as her eyes, now black
as that thunder-cloud, now white as the snow
that-the winter wind tossed, now pearl-hued
and opaline as the convolvulus that blew in her
own garden.
And Bbe would listen, with the shell m
her lap, and try to understand, and gaze at the
ships and then at the sky beyond them, and try
to figure to herself those strange countries to
which these ships were always going, and saw
in fancy all the blossoming orchard province of
green France, and all the fir-clothed hills and
rushing rivers of the snow-locked Swedish
shore, and saw too, doubtless, many lands that
had no place at all except in dream-land, and
were more beautiful even than the beauty of
the earth, as poets' countries are, to there own
sorrow oftentimes.
But this dull day Bbe did not go down
upon the wharf; she did not want the sailors'
tales; she saw the masts and bits of bunting
that streamed from them, and they made her
restless, which they had never done before.
Instead she went in at a dark old door and
climbed up a steep staircase that went up and
up, as though she were mounting St. Gudule's
belfry towers; and at the top of it entered a lit-
tle chamber in the roof, where one square un-
glazed hole that served for light looked out upon
the canal, with all its crowded craft, from the
dainty schooner-yacht, fresh as gilding and
holystone could make her, that was running
for pleasure to the Scheldt, to the rude, clumsy
coal-barge, black as night, that bore the rough
diamonds of Belgium to the snow-buried roofs
of Christiania and Stromstad.
In the little dark attic there was a very old
woman in a red petticoat and a high cap, who
sat against the window, and pricked out lace
patterns with a pin, on thick paper. She was
eighty-five years old, and could hardly keep
fcody and soul together.
Bbe running to her, kissed her.
"Oh, mother Annmie, look here! Beauti-
ful red and white currants, and a roll; I saved
them for you. They are the first currants we
have seen this year. Me? oh, for me, I have
eaten more than are good! You know I pick
fruit like a sparrow, always. Dear mother An-
nmie are you better? Are you quite sure you
are better to-day?"
The little old withered woman, brown as a
walnut and meagre as a rush, took the cu
a watterlogged brig, and her hull riven in two,
and her crew all drowned and dead beyond any
manner of doubt. And on her stern there was
her name painted white, the Fleur d'Epme, of
Brussels, as plain as name could be- and that
was all we ever knew : what evil had struck her,
or how they had perished, nobody ever told.
Only the coaster brought that bit of beam away,
with the Fleur d'Epine writ clear upon it. But
you see I never know my man is dead. Any
daywho can say ?any one of those ships may
walnut and meagre as a rush, took tne cur : uaywuu ran w .- uj v^ ___r__,
rants and smiled^ with a childish glee, and be- , bring him aboard of her, and he may leap out oa
1<uu '           ,   ...    *.,.-_..:.._ .i.  r.:v?r   ,;n. .,..!,   n,o wlmrf iliprp nnd come running-up the stairs
the wharf there, and come running up the stairs
as he used to do, and cry, in his merry voice,
 Annmie, Annmie, here is more flax to spin,
here is more hose to weave!' For that was al-
ways his homeward word ; no matter whether
he had had fair weather or foul, he always,
knotted the flax to his masthead. So you see,
dear, I could not leave here. For what if he
came and found me away? He would say it
was an odd fashion of mourning for him. And
I could not do without the window, you know.
I can watch all the brigs come in ; and I can
smell the shipping smell that I have loved all
the days of my life; and I can see the lads heav-
ing, and climbing, and furling, and mending
theis bits of canvas, and hauling their flags up
and down. And then who can say?the sea
never took him, I thinkI think I shall hear
his voie before I die. For they do say that God
is good."
Bbe, sweeping very noiselessly, listened,
and her eyes grew wistful and wondering. She
had heard the story a thousand times; always
in different words, but always the same little
tale and she knew how old Annmie was deal
to all the bells that tolled the time, and blind
to all the whiteness of her hair and all the
wrinkles of her face, and only thought of her
sea-slain lover as he had been in the days of her
youth.                                                                   ,
But this afternoon the familiar history had
a new patheticalness for her, and as the old
soul put aside with her palsied hand the square
lay I tidy the room a little?"                         of canvas that   screened the  casement,   and
" To be sure, dear, and thank you too. I ; looked out, with her old dim sad eyes strained
have not much time, you see; and somehow [ in the longing that God never answered Be bee
my back aches badly when I stoop. "                   \ felt a strange chill at her own heart, and won-
"And it is so damp here for you, over all I dered to herself,                                      .,.
that water !" said Bbe as she swept and dusted ! ' ' What can it be to care for another creatm
and set to rights the tiny place, and put in a j like that? It must be so terrible, and yet it
little broken pot a few sprays of honeysuckle ! must be beautiful too. Does every one suffer
and rosemary that she had brought with her. | hke that?"                                        .
" ft is so damp here. You shoull have come i She did not speak at all as she finished sweep,
and lived in my hut with me, Annmie, and sat j ing the bricks, and went down-stairs fora
out under the vine all day, and looked after | metal cruche full of water, and set over 
the chickens for me when I was in the town, little charcoal on the stove the old woman s
They are such mischievous little souls; as soon ; brass soup-kettle with her supper of stewing
as mv back is turned one or other is sure to   cabbage.
push "through the roof, and get out among the      Annmie did not hear or notice; she was still
flowerbeds    Will you ne v er change your mind,   looking out of the whole in the wall on to tne^
and live with me, Annmie?   I am sure you j masts, and the sails, and the water,
would be happy, and the starling says your I    It was twilight.          ,...,.               .,
rame quite plain, and he is Mich a funny bird From the barges and brigs there came the
to talk to- you never would tire of him. Will ! smell of the sea. The sailors were shouting to
vou never come? It is so bright there, and I each other. The paft were crowded close and
jn-een and sweet-smelling; and to think you lost in the growing darkness. On the other
never even have seen it !and the swans and ; side of the canal the belfries were ringing for
rr__jf js a ghame "                                               ' vespers.
"No dear" said old Annmie, eating her! "Eleven voyages one and another and he-
last bunch of currants. " You have said so so [ never forgot to tie the flax to the mast Anne-
often and you are good and mean it, that I [ mie murmured, with her _ old wrinkled lace
know    But I could not leave the water.    It, leaning out into the gray air.    "It used to fly
gan to eat them, blessing the child with each
crumb she broke off the bread.
" Why had you not a grandmother of your
own, my little one?" she mumbled.^ "How
good you would have been to her, Bebe!"
"Yes," said Bbe seriously, but her mind
could not grasp the idea. It was easier for her
to believe the fanciful lily-parentage of An-
toine's stories. "How much work have you
done, Annmie? Oh, all that? all that? But
there is enough for a week. You work too
early and too late, you dear Annmie."
"'Nay, Bbe, when one has to get one's
bread that cannot be. But I am afraid my
eyes are failing. That rose now, is it well
done?"
"Beautifully done. Would the Bas take
them if they were not? You know he is one
that cuts every centime in four pieces "
"Ah! sharp enough, sharp enoughthat is
true. But I am always afraid of my eyes. I do
not see the flags out there so well as I used to
do."                                                              ,   .
"Because the sun is so bright, Annemie;
that is all. I myself, when I have been sitting all
day in the Place in the light, the flowers look
pale to me. And you know it is not age with
me, Annmie?"
The old woman and the young girl laughed
together at that droll idea.
"You have a merry heart, dear little one,"
said old Annmie.    " The saints keep it to you
would kill me. Out of this window you know
I saw my Jeannot's brig go awayaway
awaytill the masts were lost in the mists.
Going with iron to Norway; the Fleur d'Epine
there,one could see it coming up half a mile
off,just a pale-yellow flake on the wind, like
a tress of my hair, he would say. No, no, I
could not go away ; he may come to-night, to
Going with iron to JNorway; tne r ieur a rapine couru irur, u *j, ~= ."j ~~~ ~."-.-'XT
of this town a good ship, and a sure, and her j morrow, any time; he is not drowned, not my
mate! and 2i prlud as might be, and with a \ man; he was all I had, and God is good, they
little blest Mary in lead round his throat.    She  say."
was to be back in port in eight months, bring
ing timber. Eight monthsthat brought Eas-
ter-time. But she never came. Never, never,
never, you know. I sat here watching them
come and go, and my child sickened and died
and tho summer passed, and the autumn, and
all the while I lookedlookedlooked; for the
brigs are all much alike; and only her I always
saw as soon as she hove in sight (because he
Bbe listened and looked; then kissed the
old shaking hand and took up the lace patterns
and went softly out of the room without speak-
When old Annmie watched at the window it
was useless to seek for any word or sign of her;.
people said that she had never been quite right
in her brain since that fatal winter noon sixty
vears before,  when the coaster had brought
saw as soon as she hove in sight CDecause ne  years  ueioie,   wu*  "fxr^V  "f hrk
tiedahank of flax to her mizzen mast); and  into port the broken beam of the good om
when be was home safe and sound I spun the , Fleur d'Epme.
hank into hose for him; that was a fancy of |    Bebe did not know about that, n
his, and for eleven voyages, one on another, he
had mever missed to tie the flax nor I to
spin the hose. But the hank of flax 1 never
saw this time; nor the brave brig; nor my
good man with his sunny blue eyes. Only
one day in winter, when the great blocks
of ice were smashing hither and thither
a coaster came in and brought tidings of
how off in the Danish waters they had come on
whether her wits were right or not.
She had known the old creature in the lace-
room where Annmie pricked out designs, and
she had conceived a great regard and sorrow
for her; and when Annmie had become too
ailing and aged to go herself any longer to the
lace-maker's place, Bbe had begged leave tor
her to have the patterns at home, and had car-
ried them to and fro for her for the last three or.