"My doll's 'most worn out," mourned Elsie. "Guess it will be quite by the time I get home, with Rosie and Esther bangin' it round."
"I want my dolly! I want my dolly!" piped up little Isabel. "Where's my dolly?"
"Oh! May I get her the doll, Miss Lucy?" cried Elsie, running over to the chest of drawers where the ward's few playthings were kept.
Isabel trotted after, her face shining with expectation.
Barely waiting for the desired permission, Elsie dived down into the lower drawer, and, after a brief search among torn picture-books and odds and ends of broken toy, brought forth a little battered rubber doll, which had lost most of its coloring and all of its cry. But Baby Isabel hugged it to her heart, and at once dropped to the floor, crooning over her new treasure.
While the ward was thus discussing dolls, Mrs. Jocelyn and Polly, downstairs, in the little lady's room, were conversing on the same subject.
It was Polly's first visit since the night she had sung to Burton Leonard, and they had talked of that any many other things.
"It is too bad for you to be shut up in a hospital all this beautiful summer," lamented Mrs. Jocelyn. "If I were only well, I'd carry you off home with me this very day, and we'd go driving out in the country, and have woodsy picnics, and all sorts of delightful things."
"I went to ride yesterday with Dr. Dudley," said Polly contentedly.
"Yes, that's all right as far as it goes; but your pleasures are too serious ones for the most part. You ought to be playing with dolls—without a care beyond them. By the way, I never have seen you with a doll yet."