Fe Goes to Learn a Trade, 43

 

“But I only want to make shoes for Aggy’s doll.
She oughtn’t to go without shoes in this weather,
you know.”

“Certainly not. Well, if you will bring me the
doll I will take her measure and make her a pair.”

“But I don’t think papa could afford to pay for
shoes for a doll as well as for all of us. You see,
though it would be better, it’s not necessary that a
doll should have strong shoes. She has shoes good
enough for indoors, and she needn't walk in the
wet. Don’t you think so yourself, Hector?”

“But,” returned Hector, ‘I shall be happy to
make Agnes a present of a pair of shoes for her
doll. I shouldn’t think of charging your papa for
that. He is far too good a man to be made to pay
for everything.”

“But,” objected Willie, “to let you make them
for nothing would be as bad as to make papa pay
for them when they are not necessary. Please,
you must let me make them for Aggy. Besides,
she’s not old enough yet even to say thank you for
them.”

“Then she won't be old enough to say thank you
to you either,” said Hector, who, all this time, had
been losing no moment from his work, but was
stitching away, with a bore, and a twiddle, and a
hiss, at the sole of a huge boot,

“Ah! but you see, she’s my own—so it doesn’t

matter!”
(418) D