"I never rode on one before," said the stranger, "but I feel like a princess now, I do."
"Never rode on a swan boat, never had a doll," the thought kept running through Mary Jane's head during the rest of the ride and while they were getting off and going back to her mother, "never had a doll—" How funny that would seem!
The rescued doll was not dry yet, of course, but Uncle Hal had procured a paper to wrap it in, so that it could be carried home safely.
"We'll get the clothes and wrap them up too," said Alice, and Mary Jane, and the mother of the doll ran and brought the clothes from the bush at the other side of the lagoon, and Alice wrapped them carefully so nothing could be lost out on the way home.
While she was doing that, Mary Jane whispered to her mother, "Won't you please find out the name of that little girl with the brown eyes, and the boy, Mother dear, and where they live, and I'll tell you why when we get home to the hotel?"
Mrs. Merrill pulled out her tiny notebook and tactfully asking the boy for his name and address, wrote them down in the book. Then they all said a good-by to their new friends, for it was now high time they were getting back to dress for dinner.
"Mother dear," said Mary Jane as she skipped along beside her mother five minutes later, "that little girl never had a doll and she never went on the boats before though she lives right here in Boston. And as soon as we get home I want to send her a doll, all dressed in pretty clothes and everything—may I please?"
"Indeed yes, dear," answered Mrs. Merrill, much pleased with the idea. "We'll do it just as soon as we get home, and you and Alice may make the clothes and have it a really gift of your own."
When, an hour or more after dinner that evening, Mary Jane snuggled down in her bed for a long night's sleep, she said to Alice, "Didn't we have fun to-day? Winning the game and going boat riding and rescuing the doll and everything? Now I wonder what'll happen to-morrow?"
COMMENCEMENT IN THE STADIUM