"On the bench. She left it. She forgot it. Ain't it mine now?" pleadingly. "I waited, honest, but she didn't come back."
Mrs. Lynch was examining the small wonder with timid fingers, lifting fold after fold of shining satin and dainty muslin.
"Who was she?" she asked.
"A kid." Little Beryl kindled to the interest of her story. Had not something very thrilling happened in her simple life—a life the greatest interest of which was to carry to the store each day the small bundle of crocheted lace which her mother made. "She was a swell kid. She played in the park, waitin' for a big man."
"Did she talk to you?" breathlessly.
Beryl avoided this question. The beautiful little girl had not spoken to her, though she had hung by very close, inviting an approach with hungry eyes.
"She was just a little kid," loftily. Then, "Ain't the doll mine?"
Mrs. Lynch patted down the outermost garment. "Yes, it's yours it is, darlin'. At least—" she hesitated over a fleeting sense of justice, "maybe the little stranger will be a-coming back for her doll. It's a fair bit of dolly and it's lonesome and weeping the little mother may be this very minute—"
Beryl reached out eager arms.
"It's an orphan doll. I'll love it hard. Give me it. Oh," with a breath that was like a whistle. "Ain't she lovely? Mom, is she too lovely for us?"