CONCERNING A DOLL
IN AN AMBER-COLOURED GOWN
IT was a wretched evening, only a few days before the joyful Christmas season. The weather was damp and chill, and the London streets were slippery and comfortless. Pale, shivering forms sheltered themselves in every conceivable nook which was safe, for a time at any rate, from the keen scrutiny of the police; business men and women were wending their different ways homewards from the City, and the theatres and other places of amusement were not yet open. The shops were with enticing articles displayed to the best advantage, and many a poor child stood wistfully gazing at the fruit in the grocers' windows, so temptingly set out, as though to purposely tantalize hungry eyes.
And then the toys! Wonderful inventions made for the children of the wealthy! Engines worked by machinery! Dolls that opened and shut their eyes, and even walked and talked! Noah's arks of marvellous workmanship, containing every known animal on the face of the globe!
A young man, hurrying along, turned his head and glanced smilingly at a shop window full of dolls of all sizes and conditions and prices, from the gorgeously apparelled waxen bride-dollie in satin and orange blossom to her penny Dutch sister with flat figure and nondescript features.
"That would be the place to buy a doll for Nellie!" exclaimed the young man, as he came to a full stop and stood with his hands in his pockets, gazing at the motley faces that seemed to stare at him unblinkingly with their glassy eyes. "I suppose she would rather have a doll than anything else, although she has so many already!"
He was a good-looking lad, a medical student, Jim Blewett by name, and Nellie was the only child of his brother in Cornwall, and a great favourite with her uncle.
"I think I could afford half-a-sovereign," he ruminated; "for that price it would appear one can get a most desirable dollie!"
He was turning into the doorway of the shop when he espied a child at his side, watching him with great interest, and he paused. She was a little girl of about seven years old, with a pale, thin face, and large dark eyes. She drew back when she saw he had observed her, and coloured. His shrewd glance noted she was poorly though neatly clad, and that her toes had worn through her boots, whilst her head was covered by an old sailor hat much too large for her, and with a dilapidated brim.
"I suppose I must have been talking aloud," Jim Blewett thought; then nodded encouragingly at the child, who responded with a smile.