The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1910-04-03

~ $S 49, SplIlt OF Lazy MllCcnI Qe ven.
q None Of the other girls at the five-and-ten
cent store where Milly (the body worked
suspected the existence of this Lady Micent
Ithe souD. As for that matter it was some
|&fime before even Milly herself was absolutely
sure. True, she never hippantly referred to
the hoorwalker as Mr.. Five of the Five & Ten
Cent Store as the other girls always did, and
#once, when she had nothing else to do for
NEARLY eight minutes, she had tried to think of
him as Lord Harold But that was only the
#pecking of the spirit upon its earthly shell.
B Her real life romance was born one Saturday
evening in the humble shop of an Italian
#cobbler.
u Mlly went there to get the shoes she had
left on Wednesday to be half soled French
heeled and patched. Tony the cobbler was
engaged with tall, broad shouldered man
& when she entered
Are my shoes done ?" demanded Milly in
& the decisive tones of the modern business
4 woman.
The tall man quickly stepped aside and,
with sweeping bow, made room for her
a And such a man! His dark dreamy eyes,
his great wavy moustache-the very home of
Il romance, his strong manly jaw-Milly's eyes
dropped, and the pale spaces between her
freckles became suffused with maidenly
4 blush.
After glance at her check Tony fshed her
4 himsy, feminine shoes out from pile on the
u floor and planked them down on his bench
A alongside pair of heavy, masculine ones
n Then, taking down the remaining pages of
cheap periodical from pile OF old papers, he
separated them and deity did the shoes up
81
she carried under her arm may have been the
shoes of Milly Devery, it was Lady Milcent
de Veri who swept out into the street while
I the dark-eyed, wavy -moustached stranger
held the door.
M Buoyed UP by strange sense of excitement
she hurried through the streets, tripped up the
front steps and lightly mounted the three
fights to her SxIo home" in the rear Of the
D house. When she had lighted the gas she
4 paused in the middle Of the floor to give her
L humping heart chance to resume its normal
4 jog. Suddenly she snatched the bundle up
h from the cot where she had thrown it and
4 nervously removed its wrapping, She held
the shoes at arms length and critically sur
q veyed them. They really weren't bad look
4 ing now that they had been repaired and
! rubbed up a bit. She heaved sigh Of relief.
Wasn't it lucky THAT he had seen them when
she had called for them instead of when she
had brought them imp And wasn't he just
Y grandl
Then came the reaction She flung the
/ shoes into corner and threw herself upon her
cot Who was she that she should permit
herself to be put all a-futtcr at the sight of
& handsome, dark completed Stranger"
Her body suddenly became tired with the
B fatigue OF long hours of selling can-openers,
ladies' hosiery, gas tips, toy trumpets and
Il thousand and one similarly dissimilar odds
and ends. But the mind of Lady Milieent
kept up constant chatter that put sleep for
the tired body Of plain Milly Devery out of
the question. She reached for the paper that
had wrapped her shoes and glanced languidly
at it.
4 1t was the center pages of one of those
B startlingly illustrated fireside weeklies" that
were more common a couple of decades ago
than now. The first chapters were missing,
but she was able to gather that Sir Charles,
the Lord Mayor, was making his annual
inspection of the factory where Mildred
worked. Mote the similarity of names,
Mildred Milicent. Milly noticed it right
away
As the superintendent led the way past
the spindle where Mildred was working, the
Lord Mayor suddenly stopped and gave a
slight start. He regarded the fair girl be-
fore him with curious, puzzled expression.
And then, realizing that his searching gaze
might give offense, he mumbled an apology,
and. with sweeping bow, passed on.
(Nfilly recalled the sweeping bow of the
handsome stranger atthe ycobbler's.)
A moment later she heard his Lordship
ask the superintendent Ah-er-who is
that beautiful young lady at the third spin
die? She is strangely familiar. | seem to
have seen that face before.
The superintendent glowered darkly. and
rnuttered something about New hands
can't keep track OF them all-hundreds OF
EN- look just alike"
You who have read that sort Of story just
to see what it is like" will not be surprised tc
learn that as soon as Sir Charles, the Lord
Mayor, was out of the factory, the yillainous
superintendent summoned Mildred to his
office and asked her to become his bride
Mildred kindly but firmly declined, explain
e 49, 81
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