“Very well; then I will leave her.”
Just at that moment I heard a voice call, “Sally! Sally!”
It was a well-trained, ladylike voice, but somewhat imperious.
“Yes, Lady Jane, I’ll be there in a moment,” answered the dwarf, whom I now knew to be Sally. Then a door opened, and the most beautiful creature I ever saw stood in it, looking in.
The hospital was a bare enough place. There was a great table covered with dolls,—dolls with broken legs, dolls with punched heads, dolls with one arm gone, hairless dolls, broken-backed dolls, dolls of every kind, awaiting the ministrations of Sally; and dozens of other dolls were there, too, whom those skilful fingers had already cured of their wounds.
There was a shelf, on which was ranged the pharmacy of this hospital,—white cement, boxes of saw-dust, collections of legs and arms, wigs, every thing, in short, that an afflicted doll could possibly require. Then there were two or three wooden stools, and these completed the furniture of the apartment.
Standing in the doorway, Lady Jane looked as if she were a larger doll than the rest,—a doll with a soul. She seemed a lady’s child, every pretty inch of her. I should think she was about twelve years old. She wore a blue dress, and a blue ribbon in the bright, fair hair that hung all about her soft, pink-and-white face, out of which looked two great, serious, inquiring blue eyes.
“I will be through soon, Lady Jane,” Sally said quietly; and the girl turned away, but not before I had taken in a complete picture of her loveliness, and had noticed also a somewhat singular ornament she wore, attached to a slender golden chain. It was so strange a vision to see in this humble little shop that my curiosity got the better of me, and, after the door had closed on Lady Jane, I asked, “Does she live here?”
“Yes’m,” answered Sally proudly. “In a way, she is my child.”
I hesitated to inquire further; but I think my eyes must have asked some questions in spite of myself; for Sally said, after a moment,—