"Positively."

"Well, then, how will you ever return Cinderella her slipper if you
don't go in search of her?"

Lynde bit his lip, and felt that the blackest criminals of antiquity
were as white as driven snow compared with Preston.

"The prince in the story, you know," continued Miss Bowlsby, with her
smile of ingenue, "hunted high and low until he found her again."

"That prince was a very energetic fellow," said Lynde, hastily putting
on his old light armor. "Possibly I should not have to travel so far
from home," he added, with a bow. "I know at least one lady in
Rivermouth who has a Cinderella foot."

"She has two of them, Mr. Lynde," responded Miss Mildred, dropping him a
courtesy.

The poor little slipper's doom was sealed. The edict for its banishment
had gone forth. If it were going to be the town's talk he could not keep
it on his writing-desk. As soon as Lynde got back to his chambers, he
locked up Cinderella's slipper in an old trunk in a closet seldom or
never opened.

The enchantment, whatever it was, was broken. Although he missed the
slipper from among the trifles scattered over his table, its absence
brought him a kind of relief. He less frequently caught himself falling
into brown studies. The details of his adventure daily grew more
indistinct; the picture was becoming a mere outline; it was fading away.