It is hardly needful to say that Timothy was reconciled to his shoes. As to being ashamed of them—he would as soon have been ashamed of that other true friend of his, the Usher. He would no more have parted with them now than Dr. Dixon Airey would have parted with the dog Bernardus.

But, alas! how often it happens that we do not fully value our best friends till they are about to be taken from us! It was a painful fact, but Timothy was outgrowing his shoes.

He was at home when the day came on which the old leather shoes into which he could no longer squeeze his feet were polished for the last time, and put away in a cupboard in his mother’s room: Timothy blacked them with his own hands, and the tears were in his eyes as he put them on the shelf.

“Good-bye, good little friends;” said he; “I will try and walk as you have taught me.”

Timothy’s mother was much affected by this event. She could not sleep that night for thinking of the shoes in the cupboard. She seemed to live over again all the long years of her married life. Her first anxieties, the good conduct of all her boys, the faithful help of those good friends to her nine sons in turn—all passed through her mind as she knitted her brows under the frill of her nightcap and gazed at the cupboard door with sleepless eyes. “Ah!” she thought, “how wise the good godmother was! No money, no good luck, would have done for my boys what the early training of these shoes has done. That early discipline which makes the prompt performance of duty a habit in childhood, is indeed the quickest relief to parental anxieties, and the firmest foundation for the fortunes of one’s children.”

Such, and many more, were the excellent reflections of this conscientious woman; but excellent as they were, they shall not be recorded here. One’s own experience preaches with irresistible eloquence; but the second-hand sermons of other people’s lives are apt to seem tedious and impertinent.

Her meditations kept her awake till dawn. The sun was just rising, and the good woman was just beginning to feel sleepy, and had once or twice lost sight of the bed-room furniture in a half-dream, when she was startled by the familiar sound as of a child jumping down from some height to the floor. The habit of years was strong on her, and she cried, “Bless the boy! He’ll break his neck!” as she had had reason to exclaim about one or other of her nine sons any day for the last twenty years.

But as she spoke the cupboard door swung slowly open, and Timothy’s shoes came out and ran across the floor. They paused for an instant by his mother’s bed, as if to say farewell, and then the bed-room door opened also and let them pass. Down the stairs they went, and they ran with that music of a childish patter that no foot in the house could make now; and the mother sobbed to hear it for the last time. Then she thought, “The house door’s locked, they can’t go right away yet.”

But in that moment she heard the house door turn slowly on its hinges. Then she jumped out of bed, and ran to the window, pushed it open, and leaned out.

In front of the house was a little garden, and the little garden was kept by a gate, and beyond the gate was a road, and beyond the road was a hill, and on the grass of the hill the dew lay thick and white, and morning mists rested on the top. The little shoes pattered through the garden, and the gate opened for them and snecked after them. And they crossed the road, and went over the hill, leaving little footprints in the dew. And they passed into the morning mists, and were lost to sight.

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.