"Go away!" she would cry, stamping her foot energetically. "Rhoda is a good child."
The Things and the Bear all grunted with the same voice as they retreated in discontent to their lairs; but I was not critical. It was enough for me that they went, if only for a time. Always I remembered that Lily-Ann could summon them at will, and her importance grew greater day by day.
There were hours, however, when I escaped into the safety of my mother's room. I was not too small to understand the delights of that cheerful room,—the glittering objects on the dressing-table, the deep bureau drawers filled with wonders much too dainty for a child to touch. There were keepsakes, also, mementos of my mother's childhood and youth; prize books in foreign tongues, won at school and laid away in tissue paper; bits of costly lace, and many little worthless, well-beloved possessions. In the closet there was a box on an upper shelf. Quite an ordinary box it was on the outside, made of pasteboard and tied with bands of yellow ribbon which had once been white. My mother lifted the cover one day, and showed me what was inside. It was the most wonderful thing, and it had come off her wedding-cake. There was a white platform surrounded with a wreath of white roses and leaves, and in the center of the platform there stood under a wreathed arch two little dolls, arm in arm.
"They are going to be married," my mother said. "They came off the top of my cake when I was married."
"Oh, isn't it too sweet for anything!" I cried, in an ecstasy. "But, mother, why does the lady doll wear a veil?"
"All brides do. You shall, too, some day."
"Shall I?" I questioned, doubtfully. "But, mother, dear, suppose I should grow up, and never get married, won't you give me these little dolls to play with?"
"If that should happen I suppose I must," my mother said, with a laugh, and tied the box up tightly again, and put it back on the upper shelf.