bow of ribbon on the instep the smaller the foot appears. It is very easy, and if you cannot afford to put in the best of silk braid, or will not take the trouble,-please, at least, cut off the tags from your cheap laces. It takes away that slovenly look. Even a man may profit by this suggestion, and seem more "fit."

There are other tricks in this trade also. For there is the girl in low shoes with red laces and with white laces. The practice is not to be commended and prevails only among the young and crude. They also tie these laces at the toe, wherein is a mystery.

Of course the pretty girl's shoe will come untied. That used to be part of the game. But the subterfuge is idle. It is easy to secure the bow absolutely with the "salmon knot." In the interest of young bachelors a description of that tie may well be omitted.

A few roguish girls have dared to wear with their white gowns, white stockings and a black low shoe. Venture it only if Venture it only if your feet are petite, and then "look out for squalls!" Where are the merry red shoes and red silk stockings of a decade or more ago? Someone sang of them:

Hers are those dainty shoes, red as the rose,
Or white as lilies, or yet brown or tan,
Or bright deep yellow like the marigolds
That dot the dusty sidewalk till it blooms
And blossoms like a brilliant flower bed.

And where is the girl who dares to wear on a black shoe the riotous red heels of our grandmothers, which you may sometimes still see in shop windows? Can you not picture "Beatrix" clicking down the stairs on them? Or was it red rosettes she wore on her slippers? No, when Du Maurier pictured her in his illustrations to "Henry Esmond," she wore "scarlet stockings and white shoes." Her "wonderfulest little shoes with wonderful tall

red heels" appear later in the story; also that she wore "silver clocked stockings," and again, that her "red stockings were changed for a pair of gray, and black shoes in which her feet looked to the full as pretty." Thackeray knew things about a woman's foot, you may be sure.

A newspaper item says that a prominent actress has braved the red heels and rejoices in them. It is to be hoped that they are not too high, and are carried with circumspection.

And speaking of ribbands, with a “d” in

them—where is the demure girl, in black low shoes with black or white silk stockings, who dare lace her ribbands all up the ankle as in the days "under the Directory?" I blow a kiss to her, if I may make so bold.

An Incident in Book

Collecting

IT is no mark of distinction in these days to

have books. It is as matter-of-course as the having of pots and pans and kettles in the kitchen. We buy our books as unconcernedly as our tea or tobacco. The quality of the article bought may vary with our purse or mood, but the habit of buying remains. In this age being a good citizen involves being a good book buyer.

But although now there be truly books for the million, and a library may be bought for a song at the dry goods stores, it does not follow that the college man and scholar, the man of parts and of letters, need fill his shelves in that vulgar way, or stoop to dip from the fountains of wisdom with a common dipper. For while to the plodding student, books may appear only as the tools of his craft or mere vehicles of knowledge, for him, later in the growth of culture, do books take on a lovable personality, and become animate with the soul of the author.