"Do, for goodness' sake, stop calling him parper! It is so American! Going abroad hasn't done you a bit of good."
CHAPTER X.
Mabel's "baby" (she never called it dolly) was almost always nestling in her arms. It seemed to fill the maternal element of her character, and though she was a wee little mother, a veritable mother she was, and it was amusing to watch her quaint ways with it. The march of improvement had taken up dolls, as well as everything else. What marvels of art are their generation, nowadays! Compare them with the stiff wooden monsters of fifty years ago, with their back hair done up like that of aged matrons, surmounted with high yellow combs! What a stretch of imagination is required to fancy these angular ladies' babies.
But now an event befel that nearly broke her heart. Baby's sweet blue eyes suddenly disappeared, leaving two empty holes in her face. From that moment all illusion concerning her vanished. The eyes of real babies never dropped down inside of them. So she begged to have it put away where she could never again be horrified by the sight. Margaret could not understand this. But Mabel had always shrank from the sight of unpleasant objects, and her aversion to her baby in its mutilated state was almost morbid. Still she bemoaned her loss sorely, and when Mrs. Grey, fearing she would make herself ill with crying, left the book she was writing, and everything else, and went to the city to replace the departed, nothing would induce the child to accept the offering, though it was the facsimile of the poor blue-eyed Mary.
Margaret spent a large part of the next day in making paper dolls for Mabel. Her nature was opulent; as she loved the few she loved to infatuation, so her gifts were prodigal. Never had a child so suddenly acquired a large family; their name was legion. Still, they did not supersede her darling.
"I want a yeal live baby," she said, amid her tears.
"So do I," said Margaret, "but I don't cry for one. And there are no live babies for sale, so I can't buy one for myself, or for you." Mabel said no more. She had been taught to pray for what she wanted, so she now stopped crying, went behind the door, and said, softly:
"Christ, will you give me a yeal live baby, with yeal eyes that can't drop out?" and came back composed and full of faith.