“I looked at myself in the glass tonight,” confessed Rebecca Mary's diary, “but it was on acount of the rufles. I think Ime not quite so homebly in rufles. I think Aunt Olivia was kind to rufle me. I should like to ware this night gown in the day time. I wish folks did.”
The pencil slipped out of Rebecca Mary's fingers and rolled on the floor, to the undoing of the little, white cat, who had gone to bed in his basket. Rebecca Mary caught him up as he darted after the pencil, and hugged him in an odd little ecstasy. She felt oddly happy.
“You little, white cat!” she cried, muffledly, her face in his thick coat, “you've waited and waited, but I think I'm going to love you now—you needn't wait any more.”
The Feel Doll
The minister uttered a suppressed note of warning as solid little steps sounded in the hall. It was he who threw a hasty covering over the doll. The minister's wife sewed on undisturbedly. She did worse than that.
“Come here, Rhoda,” she called, “and tell me which you like better, three tucks or five in this petticoat?”
“Five,” promptly, upon inspection. Rhoda pulled away the concealing cover and regarded the stolid doll with tilted head. “She's 'nough like my Pharaoh's Daughter to be a blood relation,” she remarked. “She's got the Pharaoh complexion.”
“Spoken like MY daughter!” laughed the minister. “But I thought new dolls in this house were always surprises. And here's Mrs. Minister making doll petticoats out in the open!”
“This is Rebecca Mary's—I'm dressing a doll for Rebecca Mary, Robert. She's eleven years old and never had a doll! Rhoda's ten and has had—How many dolls have you had, Rhoda?”