“Yes, yes, dear, I want it to happen,” Sally said hastily; “I couldn’t want to shut you up here for ever, like a flower growing in a dungeon.”
“A pretty, blue-hung dungeon, with nice soft chairs,” Lady Jane said pleasantly; and then I got up to go.
Had this beautiful girl any real heart behind her beauty? I wondered. If the time ever came when Sally must give her up to some brighter fate, would it cost the little lady herself one pang? Could she be wholly insensible to all the devotion that had been lavished on her for all these years? I could not tell; but she seemed to me too light a thing for deep loving.
I carried Bella home to Mistress Brown-Eyes, who received her with great joy, and with a certain tender respect, such as we give to those who have passed through perils. I stayed in London till “the season” was over,—that is to say, till the end of July; and then, with the last rose of summer in my buttonhole, I went over to the fair sea coast of France.
It was not until the next May that I found myself in London again; and going to renew my subscription at Mudie’s, passed the dolls’ hospital. I looked up at the quaint sign, and the fancy seized me to go in.
I opened the door, and promptly as ever, the dwarf surgeon of the dolls stood before me. It was nearly four o’clock, and the hospital was empty of customers. Nothing in it was changed except the face of the surgeon. Out of that always plain face a certain cheerful light had faded. It looked now like a face accustomed to tears. I said,—
“Do you remember me, Dr. Sally?”
A sort of frozen smile came to the poor trembling lips.
“Oh, yes’m. You’re the lady that brought the rose-buds to Lady Jane.”
“And is she well?” I asked.