“Yes. When the doll first came, I dressed her in the ball gown, because that was what she had on when Miss Dean really gave her to me. Since then I have thought very little about her. Perhaps I shall keep her and have her for company when I grow old, just as Miss Dean had her. Or perhaps we might dress her in a newer fashion and give her to one of the Convalescent children.”
“O no! no!” objected the girls as with one voice. “She is different:—they will like other dolls just as much,” little Alice added.
“She is best in her own old-fashioned dresses,” Elsa said thoughtfully, “because she has such a dear old-fashioned face.”
“And then Miss Dean wanted you to give her to the little girl who would love her the most,” Betty remarked.
“I wonder who that would be?” Elsa said wistfully, as if she were thinking out loud.
“I’m not the one,” exclaimed Ben, jingling his silver quarter-dollars.
“Of course you are not,” cried Betty. “You are only the boy in the Club.”
Betty and Ben were so constantly on the border of friendly warfare that Ruth Warren thought it better to change the subject. “Children,” she said quickly, beginning to gather the envelopes of paper dolls into a pile, “we have just time enough left to name these dolls. There are twelve of them, and each of you may choose three names. I will write the names on the envelopes. We will let Ben choose his names first. Will you begin, Ben?”
Ben looked very hard into the fire for a moment.
“Hurry up, Ben,” Alice said, giving him a sisterly poke with her foot.