Sure enough, directly in front of Sally walked a little boy wearing a blue sailor suit, and not far away she spied a little girl with long yellow curls.
‘I see them,’ said Sally. ‘I wonder whether they would buy a tea-set or a piano or a farmyard for a birthday present, if they had an Aunt Sarah to give them one. Would you stop and ask them, Mother, if you were me?’
‘No, indeed,’ said Mother. ‘I would rather go into this shop and look at the toys for sale.’
In the store entrance Mother paused to let Sally look in the shop window. It was filled with stiff figures of women, wearing silk dresses and fancy hats, and with gay scarfs thrown about their necks. They all had pretty, smiling faces and very pink cheeks and lips. Sally thought they were beautiful.
‘Are they dressed for a party?’ she asked.
‘They look as if they were,’ answered Mother.
‘Perhaps a birthday party,’ suggested Sally. ‘Oh, Mother, look, look!’
Sally gave Mother’s hand a violent shake, for from within the store a man was lifting into the show window the figure of a little girl. She was dressed in a neat dark blue frock. Upon her feet were shining brown shoes. Her hands were outstretched in a most friendly fashion.
But what made Sally’s cheeks grow pink and her eyes very bright were the cape and hood worn by the figure of the little girl. It was a scarlet cape, a gay scarlet cape, and fastened to it was a round hood that pulled snugly up over the little girl’s head.
As Sally looked at the cape she thought she had never seen anything so beautiful in all her life.