"Oh, Tibbie!" groaned Sally, "now what'll we do!"
"I didn't do it," said Tibbie, lifting a pale face with perfectly truthful eyes. "I was just as careful! She was one of my daughters; I had her in my lap rocking her to sleep with the others; she must have slipped off my lap—there were too many for one lap, I guess—but I didn't step on her. Sure, Sally—sure as I live, I didn't step on her!"
"Oh, law! You must have rocked on her. Oh, Tibbie, what'll I do!"
She picked up the doll to examine it, but saw at once that the little face could not be made right again.
Tibbie watched her without a word; her voice seemed to have sunk far below reach.
Sally moved the dolls about tentatively, so that ninety-nine should cover the same space as a hundred. Certainly at first glance the one she held would never be missed. "But what's the good?" she said, throwing it down. "They'll count them, and there'll be the mischief of a fuss. Oh, Tibbie"—and she had reached the end of her good-nature—"why did I ever think of bringing you here? Now look at all the trouble you've brought on me, when I thought you'd be so careful! And I told you and told you till I was hoarse. And here you've ruined all!"
Tibbie's eyes could not bear to meet Sally's. She stood with her hands behind her, speechless and motionless, in the middle of the floor.
"I declare I don't know what to do!" Sally exclaimed, dropping her arms and sitting down before the wreck. "I wish I'd never seen 'em! I wish there'd never been any Christmas! Oh, it's a great job, this! Tibbie, you've done for me this time!"
At this moment Miss Catherine came in to hurry them.
"She's broken one of them!" blurted out Sally.