‘LOOK, GRAND’MÈRE, LOOK!’ CRIED ANNE MARIE
Then upstairs crept Anne Marie and into the kitchen. The paper wrapped about the box was wet and torn. Anne Marie pulled it off and crumpled it up. She stuffed it in the coal scuttle. Then she opened the box. She lifted out a soft paper wrapping. She folded back a pink-and-blue tufted coverlet. And there, smiling up into her face, lay the prettiest doll that Anne Marie had ever seen.
Was it Polly Perkins? Why, of course, it was. And very glad indeed of a breath of fresh air, too, as you may well imagine.
For a moment in her surprise Anne Marie could neither speak nor move.
Then into the front room she ran, carrying the box in her arms, and plumped it down upon startled Grand’mère’s lap.
‘Look, Grand’mère, look!’ cried Anne Marie, clasping her hands together in excitement and delight. ‘A dolly, a bébé, has come to play with me. Now I shall not be lonely. Now you may nap all you wish and I shall not care. Look, Grand’mère, look! A dolly for me!’
Of course Grand’mère looked and lifted out the dolly and asked questions.
And when, at last, Anne Marie had quite finished telling what had happened, Grand’mère said solemnly,
‘The Saints have sent it to you, Anne Marie. Perhaps because you are a good girl. Undoubtedly the bébé comes from the Saints.’
But neither Papa Durant nor Maman were quite so sure of this.