“What is your story about, dear?” the little girl asked, drawing her chair close to the counter, and bending her head close to the little Marionette, the better to hear her small voice—weaker and more tiny that evening than usual.
“About a little Marionette like myself, whose best and dearest friend left her and thought she didn’t mind. And all the while she minded so very much! More than she knew how to say!”
“Poor little Marionette!” said Molly.
“It was sad, for it was only a mistake, wasn’t it?” said the little Marionette lady with a sigh. “But you shall hear all about it. Listen whilst I tell you the story of:
“‘The Last Performance.’”
The two little Marionette dolls had just finished their dance before an admiring throng of Toys, and the curtain had, that moment, fallen upon their last performance.
“So now,” sighed the little lady Marionette to her partner; “so now the play is over. We shall never act together again. I heard the woman who owned the shop say that she was going to separate us, and sell us as ordinary Toys. She said there was so little demand for Marionettes nowadays.... But you heard that as well as I, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I heard,” he answered. “And more, too. She said she was going to send me away with some other Toys to a Christmas-tree. So that it will be good-bye for a long while.”