Indeed, there was so much generous talk about Meg and Nib that when Miss Chatty went to bed she dreamed a very long and very nice dream.
In this dream all the pavements in the city were fringed with toadstools, and the stems were little girls, each with a doll in her arms, and they were all on their way to her house to be mended. When all had arrived, a tall, white angel came, and stood in the door and looked in. And she said, “Behold, I am she that weepeth over the woes of children. I sit upon a cloud over this city. To-night, on the evening air, I listened for the noise of crying and quarreling, and, instead, I heard laughter, and playing, and lullabies. The thanks of one that weeps are sweeter than all others. Take my blessing, O giver of dolls, because you have learned that a little girl, to be good, must have something to love.”
Then the children sang “bye-low-baby-bye” in soft tones; and after they were through singing, they sat and nodded deliciously,—children, dolls, and she, too; and all this while the Angel of the Children’s Woes sat in their midst on a canopied coach that had a coachman, and a footman, and a French maid, and rested from her tearful labors—indeed her eyes grew every moment of a most bright and smiling azure; and while she was resting, on a loom of silver she wove edging until there was a great plenty to have trimmed all the dolls in the world.
It was quite a pleasant dream, in fact; and Miss Chatty woke with her heart all soft, and young, and warm, and it staid so all day Sunday.
After breakfast, Monday morning, she put on her holland gloves and went out to dig around her roses. She desired the circle of dark loam about her trees to be exactly and truly round. So she found it necessary to do her own digging.
As she set her foot on the spade, a little voice she knew called from the bottom of the garden. “Please, Miss Chatty, were there a great many nice dolls brought Saturday?”
And another little voice continued, “May we go and see them?”
It was Sylvey Morgan and Teddy. They were looking over the broken paling of the garden fence, their little faces twinkling with smiles and sunshine.
“Yes, birdies. You may go up through the basement, and I will step over and see Mintie.”
The children flew to the gate and up to the house, for you must know that it was very nice, indeed, to go up to Miss Chatty’s parlors and look at the beautiful dolls all by themselves. They well knew they “mustn’t touch;” and Miss Chatty was well assured they wouldn’t.