"Pretty beads. Pretty beads," cried the little girl.
Suddenly quieted by a rush of memories Mrs. Lynch sat down and took Beryl upon her lap. "Beryl darlin', was the likes of that other little girl—the one who forgot the dolly—fine and beautiful?"
"Oh, yes!" The child's voice carried a note of wonder.
"And you shall be fine and beautiful, too, Moira Lynch's own girl, just as I used to dream for my own self, the selfish likes o' me. You shall go to school and learn from good books. Didn't the old Father tell me of the fine schools he had seen when he visited his sister in America? And anybody can go—anybody!"
Little Beryl felt that it was a solemn moment. She lifted serious eyes. "I promise," she drawled, with a gravity out of all proportion to her six years, "I promise to go to school and learn lots like Dale and be fine and boo'ful so's my 'dopted dolly will like me as well as—that other kid. I've gotta be good 'nough for her. So there."
The child could not comprehend the obstacles which might threaten such a standard; she stared bravely into the unblinking eyes of the doll who smiled back her graven smile.
Then: "I'm hungry," she declared, suddenly deciding that dumplings were more important than anything else. "And can my Dolly sit in Pop's seat?"
"That she can," cried the mother, going to her "mixin'." "And what a gay supper it will be—with the new dolly and the pretty beads and the dumplin's. Oh, Himself a foreman!"