"What are you sitting there for like a hall-porter?" she cries with scant ceremony; "and why couldn't you come upstairs like a reasonable being? Why, what is the matter? You look as doleful as a crocodile!" And copying the expression of his face to a nicety, she plants herself before the young fellow and thrusts her hands into imaginary pockets. Then she suddenly bursts into irrepressible laughter.
"Well, you needn't laugh at a fellow! You would look gloomy if after days and days of work you found yourself in the same quandary as I am. It's the shoe, that's what it is!"
"O, it's the shoe that pinches, is it?" and teasing Molly goes off into fresh fits of laughter.
"Well, you needn't laugh! as I said before. The fact is I don't know how to get it here: it is so large, you see. It's really a beautiful shoe, and will hold a lot of youngsters, but the fact remains that I can't even get it out of the door of my own room! What's to be done?" A pause. Then Hugh goes on, "You see I want to get it in here while it is dark, because if anyone saw it being taken in they would think we were all lunatics, naturally."
Molly rests her chin upon her hand and ponders deeply. "How many pieces is it in?" she asks.
"Only three," mutters Hugh despondently.
"Well, now," says Molly, "why can't you take it to pieces again? I will help you, and it will be such fun lacing it all up again. We ought to have had it made here, in the house; then there would have been no bother at all. As it is, to take it to pieces is the only thing I can suggest. Shall I run and ask Miss Denny if I may go in now with you, and then we shall get it put together again in time for the rehearsal to-night?"
"Yes, do, and I will wait here. What a clever girl you are, Molly! I knew you would think of a way out of the difficulty."
"Pooh!" says Molly. "That's nothing. It's you boys who are so helpless without us girls to manage for you! I won't be a second;" and away she bounds up the staircase.
In two or three minutes she reappears with a large piece of cake in one hand. Tucking the other through Hugh's arm she remarks (rather unintelligibly, her mouth being full of cake), "Miss Denny said I might, so I drank my tea standing, and—oh, have a bit of cake, do! I have only begun it on this side." Hugh with great gravity accepts the offer, Molly breaking off a good-sized piece of the great slice; and this matter being satisfactorily arranged, they quickly slip out of one door and in at the other. As they pass through the hall a door opens, and a refined, gentle-looking woman of about four or five and forty pauses on the threshold in surprise at the unexpected sight of Molly under the escort of her son at that time of the evening.