“Why, Mabel,” said her mother, “suppose I had two discontented little Mabels to be fretting around on a rainy day, what should I do?”
“You wouldn’t have to have two Mabels,” returned the little girl, “you could call one something else: Maude, or—oh, mamma, you could call one May and one Belle. I think I’d like to be May, myself. That’s what I’ll do next time I play by myself: I’ll pretend I have a twin sister named Belle.”
“Suppose you pick up that company of people, lying there by the window, now, and play with your twin awhile.”
Mabel looked up mischievously. “I think I’ll let Belle pick them up,” she said.
“Well, let me see her do it. There is a looking glass in which I can watch her.”
“Oh, like ‘Alice in the Looking Glass Country’. You watch and see Belle pick them up.” And she set to work, glancing over her shoulder once in a while to see if her mother took in the performance. “There!” she said, after a time, “Belle has picked them up, but we are both tired of paper dolls. Mamma, there is a red flag hanging out by a door across the street; in that house where the little boy lives. What is it for? Do you suppose he has scarlet fever?”
Her mother laughed. “No, there is an auction—a sale going on.”
“What for?”
“Why, I don’t know, dear. For some reason they are selling off their household goods and furniture.”
“Oh, I wonder if the little boy likes to do that. Who is selling the things—his papa?”