the head of the stairs before a new complexity assailed her.

"Why--why, I've never yet--been anywhere--alone--without my mother's
memory!" she faltered, aghast.

Then impetuously, with a little frown of material inconvenience, but
no flicker whatsoever in the fixed spiritual habit of her life, she
dropped her slippers on the floor, sped back to her room, hesitated on
the threshold a moment with real perplexity, darted softly to her
trunk, rummaged as noiselessly through it as a kitten's paws,
discovered at last the special object of her quest--a filmy square of
old linen and lace--thrust it into her belt with her own handkerchief,
and went creeping back again to her slippers at the head of the
stairs.

As if to add fresh nervousness to the situation, one of the slippers
lay pointing quite boldly down-stairs. But the other slipper--true as
a compass to the north--toed with unmistakable severity toward the
bedroom.

Tentatively little Eve Edgarton inserted one foot in the timid
slipper. The path back to her room was certainly the simplest path
that she knew--and the dullest. Equally tentatively she withdrew from
the timid slipper and tried the adventurous one. "O-u-c-h!" she cried
out loud. The sole of the second slipper seemed fairly sizzling with
excitement.

With a slight gasp of impatience, then, she reached out and pulled the
timid slipper back into line, stepped firmly into it, pointed both
slipper-toes unswervingly southward, and proceeded on down-stairs to