And when the sun looked over the hill and dried the dew, and sent away the mists, Timothy’s Shoes were gone.
* * * * * *
“If they never come back,” said Timothy’s mother, “I shall know that I am to have no more children!” and though she had certainly had her share, she sighed.
But they never did come back; and Timothy remained the youngest of the family.
OLD FATHER CHRISTMAS.
CHAPTER I.
“Can you fancy, young people,” said Godfather Garbel, winking with his prominent eyes, and moving his feet backwards and forwards in his square shoes, so that you could hear the squeak-leather, half a room off—“can you fancy my having been a very little boy, and having a godmother? But I had, and she sent me presents on my birthdays too. And young people did not get presents when I was a child as they get them now. We had not half so many toys as you have, but we kept them twice as long. I think we were fonder of them too, though they were neither so handsome, nor so expensive as these new-fangled affairs you are always breaking about the house.
“You see, middle-class folk were more saving then. My mother turned and dyed her dresses, and when she had done with them, the servant was very glad to have them; but, bless me! your mother’s maids dress so much finer than their mistress, I do not think they would say ‘thank you’ for her best Sunday silk. The bustle’s the wrong shape.
“What’s that you are laughing at, little miss? It’s pannier, is it? Well, well, bustle or pannier, call it what you like; but only donkeys wore panniers in my young days, and many’s the ride I’ve had in them.