Just then a queer little laugh was heard; a kind of a smothered, bursting laugh. The children stared! and there was the little old gentleman stuffing his pocket handkerchief into his mouth, and perfectly shaking with laughter!! What conduct in an aged person!! But worse was coming! The little old lady began to laugh; then she screamed with laughter, and shook so that a most dreadful thing happened! She laughed all the hair off her head! It first tumbled over sideways, and then fell on the carpet all in a bunch!
"Sister Mary!! sister Mary!!" cried Lillie, running up to the little old lady, who, strange to tell! had another crop of beautiful golden brown hair under the other, smoothed down very close to her head.
"Why, it's a wig!" screamed the children, all laughing and running up. Was there ever anything so funny: "It's nothing but Miss Mary in a wig."
At this very moment Master Sam Russell stepped slyly behind the little old gentleman, and twitched at his bushy white hair. It all came off in his hand amid roars of laughter; and underneath was the brown head of Harry, one of the greatest fellows for fun you ever saw, and a dear cousin of Lillie's.
But Miss Florence stared at it all with a simpering smile on her face; till Lillie, looking close at her, caught her up in her arms, and hugging her to her breast screamed joyfully out—"It's a new doll! a new doll!! Miss Florence is a new doll!!" and began running round the whole length of the two rooms, all the children scampering after her, laughing and shouting, till they threw themselves down on the sofas and chairs, perfectly breathless.
Yes, Miss Florence was a splendid wax doll; and the children gathered round Lillie, after just one second of rest, for they could not possibly be expected to sit still longer than that; and admired and kissed the stranger; and "Oh, what a darling! what lovely eyes! what pretty boots! how big she is! and so on," was heard on all sides.
A tremendous ring at the bell! Why! were wonders never to cease? In came Margery saying there was a trunk in the hall left by the expressman, who said Miss Florence Grey must pay him twenty-five cents, and he would not stir a step till she did.
Here was a difficulty! Lillie's money never had a chance to burn a hole in her pocket, because she spent it the very moment her mamma or papa gave her any; and she did not know where twenty-five cents were to come from.
"Suppose you feel in Miss Florence's pocket," said her mother.
"Ah! let's see!" cried Lillie; so she poked two of her little fingers in the pocket, and sure enough! there was a bright, new quarter of a dollar. She rushed out and gave it to the expressman, who hardly waited to say, "thank you," but was on his wagon with a bound, and round the corner like a flash of lightning.