“Embarrassment of riches, perhaps,” suggested Uncle Robert, her husband.
“Here, Priscilla, dear,” broke in Aunt Laura. “See this wonderful new dolly that can walk! Now, you must certainly play with her. Why, when I was a little girl I would have been delighted if my uncles and aunts had given me such splendid things! I would not have stood, as you are doing, and looked as if I did not care for them.”
Priscilla obediently took the accomplished dolly from her Aunt Laura’s hands and held it loosely in her arms, but she did not make any attempt to “play with her prettily.” Aunt Laura frowned.
Grandmamma came forward and passed her arm about Priscilla’s waist. “Our dear little girl ought to be very happy with so many people to love her,” she said, softly. Somehow her tone, kind as it was, made Priscilla feel she was being naughty because she was not so happy as grandmamma thought she ought to be. She would have liked to be obedient and to please her relations, but if she was not doing so by being very proper, and saying, “Yes, aunt,” and “No, uncle,” in answer to their questions, she did not know what else they wanted. It puzzled and bewildered her, and then the first thing she knew, the dolly had fallen from her arms to the floor with a crash, where it lay foolishly kicking its legs and sawing the air with its arms, while she herself was sobbing big tears over her nice clean dress in a way that she knew would most dreadfully provoke Hannah.
In a twinkling she was in her mother’s arms, and there was a great stir and murmur of voices about her. No one could understand what was the matter.
“She must be sick,” observed Aunt Laura.
“Perhaps something about the doll hurt her—a pin in its clothes maybe,” suggested Aunt Louise.
“Doesn’t she like toys?” asked Uncle Robert.
“We grown-ups frighten her, poor youngster. There are a good many of us, you know, and you are not all as handsome as I am,” laughed Uncle Arthur, mischievously, “are they, Priscilla?”