And now I will go through the underbrush to the house, and when you get there yourself you must tell your story as if you had not told it to me." Before Dickory had reached his mother's cottage Mistress Kate Bonnet came running to meet him, and she did not seem to be the same girl he had left that morning.

Her clothes had been dried and smoothed; even her hat, which had been found in the boat, had been made shapely and wearable, and its ribbons floated in the breeze.

Dickory glanced at her feet, and as he did so, a thrill of strange delight ran through him.

He saw his own Sunday shoes, with silver buckles, and he caught a glimpse of a pair of brown stockings, which he knew went always with those shoes.
"I am quite myself again," she said, noticing his wide eyes, "and your mother has been good enough to lend me a pair of your shoes and stockings.

Mine are so utterly ruined, and I could not walk barefooted." Dickory was so filled with pride that this fair being could wear his shoes, and that she was wearing them, that he could only mumble some stupid words about being so glad to serve her.