Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1912-05-09

your possession. Pray, o pray. dear
Prince, for the sake of romance, prom
Use that you will not hold 1t as a keep
sake, but return it to your poor little
and woefully distressed Cinderella"
Young Van Braun hesitated just a
breath before he made reply 1t
seemed quite evident to him that the
speaker was some one he knew: and
yet, so far as his recollection went, the
voice was totally strange.
you will have to prove your prop
erty. you know" he told her, with a
teasing chuckle. "It is very tiny,
fairylike slipper; and to be quite exact,
prosaic mortal that I am. I may tell
you at once that it is neither crystal
nor glass"
Lightly, her laughter flowed over the
prosaically unitarian wire. "Oh. you
goosey gander," she chirruped. Don't
you know anything about fairies at
all? 1t was crystal when it left my
foot; but it might have been any one
of hundred things when 1t reached
you. Fairies simply love to practise
transmutation."
"Oh. see,' he returned. as II thor
oughly convinced. And can they
change the size, too. just as readily.
these twentieth century fairies? Glass
slippers always stayed glass slippers
when | was boy. And their size
never varied"
your ideas were CLEANED from the
story books" she told him, with an eff
fort at gravity; and the fairy story
writer's misrepresented the little pixy
people terribly. There's really no limit
to the fairies power
"You alarm me-" he cried. "Am |
liable. then. to get into trouble over
this little matter? Would the fairies
approve of my giving the slipper back
to you?"
ooh | am sure they would. Other
wise my fairy godmother wouldn't
have given me your name and ad-
dress"
And did she do that?"
ITO be sure. How else do you sup
pose | should ever have learned who
had the slipper"
II never thought of that" he fooled.
"Will YOU come here after it? Or do
you wish me to bring it TO you?"
"Probably we had better meet each
other half way" she suggested.
Capital. You shall lunch with me
tomorrow. at the Plaza, and I'll hand
YOU lIt slipper btlWttIl tOuIStS.
you're dear" was her apprecia-
tive reioinder. And the time?"
Twill two o'clock be agreeable?"
at will be delightful"
And how shall | recognize you?"
he asked. will you wear blue rose
in your hat, or" But only a deafen-
a moment hoping 1t would cease; and
hnp In oil tn6
it He repeated it again and again and
again, and played lively tattoo with
the hook of the instrument; but the
only answer was from the clerk in the
office, downstairs, who said that his
party had rung off.
The incident annoyed him more than
it perplexed him. 1t was all very mys-
terieus, to be sure; but he felt that, in
spite of the woman's seeming gayety
the adventure held an element of the
unpleasant Throughout it all, he had
been at disadvantage. Clearly enough
she knew him; but he was utterly at
) loss to conceive her identity. More
} over. the whole conversation. pitched
as it had been. In the key Of the fanci
full, rang false, and, It seemed TO him
sinister
He took up the slipper again, ant
held 1t, almost caressingly. For thu
= life Of him. he could not have explained
the feeling that swept over him. HI
= only knew that, for some strange rea
5 son, the voice and the slipper did no
fit
In his eagerness to delve to the cor
? Of the mystifying prohlem--to test II
) bitter or sweet-Gramercy Van Braun
: slim, sinewy, rarely regular and pleas
? ing Of feature, and inconspicuousl,
? well dressed, anticipated his appoint
? ment by all of fifteen minutes. H
! had, however, taken the precaution o
securing a table by telephone; TO
G which, discovering the restaurant
n overfowing, and every chair in the ad
o iacent passages occupied by more o
: less impatiently waiting luncher, n
n now congratulated himself.
& Since his role was to be that OF TN
s discovered rather than OF the discover
S or, he bought an early edition OF on
OF the evening papers. at the newsstand
n and then flung himself down on one c
y the most conspicuously placed of tn
k Upholstered benches, to await the con
l. ing of the puzzling. if not wholly a
l. tractive. Cinderella. And. as II maj
t netized for his eyes attraction, sma
@ advertisement, under the Lost an
g Found" heading, sprang out before tn
Z Haunting news headlines, and grappie
', his attention. What he read was this
n LOST.-Last night, somewhere
, between Sherry's and the Ritz
4 Carlton, white satin slipper,
5. northumberland. Finder return
ing same to other than X u, no.
Is tel Plaza, will be prosecuted.
r Van Braun read it through twic
l. and then, lowering the paper to his la
n sat thoughtfully staring at nothln
e, while the mystery deepened. How VIZ
It 1t possible, he asked himself, to reco
" ellie Cinderellas plea and this som
r. what cryptic warning of TX Y n
a. Could they, by any possibility, be OF
and same? Or was it that each WI
It endeavoring to secure possession
A. that which belonged only to one? An
h, in either event, what was there abo'
A. slipper, extraordinary In neither m
ID terial nor making, to excite so mut
d covetous regard?
N He was still immersed In the grO'
o. Ing intricacies of the problem, when
10 hand laid lightly on his arm arrestt