CHAPTER XVII MARY MARIE COMES TO LIFE
THE next morning, after breakfast, Mary Frances hurried to her room, hoping to have another delightful lesson.
“Aunt Maria will be so surprised to see what I’ve done,” she whispered. “And mother will be so pleased.”
“You surely will surprise them,” said the Yarn Baby, “and if I am not mistaken we will have to work with all our might to get everything ready by the time they come home.”
“Indeed we will!” said Mary Frances, getting things ready for work. “I wonder what comes next?”
“Oh, excuse me,” she exclaimed after a moment, “I must go get my dolly. I put her to bed in the playroom last night.”
When she lifted Mary Marie out of her little bed and stood her on the floor, the little thing looked at her and said, “Mamma, my tootsies are told.”
“Oh, can you talk again?” cried Mary Frances. “Is it true, or am I dreaming?”
“’Torse it’s true,” answered Mary Marie. “’Torse it’s true. Fairly Flew tame in the night and tissed me.”
“What did she tell you, dear?” asked Mary Frances, lifting the doll in her arms.
“She said that I tould talk until the lessons were over.”
“Oh, I hope that they last as long as I live!” said Mary Frances, hugging the doll close.
“Toe do I!” Mary Marie said. “But my foots are told.”
“Oh, you darling!” cried Mary Frances. “You want me to make you a pair of slippers!”
“Please, Mamma,” said the little doll.
So Mary Frances dressed her in her bathrobe, and carried her into the sewing room and sat her on the table.
“How I wish I had a little ball for her to play with,” she said.
Then the Yarn Baby asked, “Why not make her one? I’ll give you the directions: