“Do you think I wanted that?” she asked. “I had had my pay for all I did, ten times over, in just having her here to look at and to love. No; I sent the money back, and I think it must be that my darling understood; for, two months afterwards, I received the only gift I would have cared to have,—her portrait. Will you please to look round, ma’am? It hangs behind you.”
I looked round, and there she was, even lovelier than when I had seen her first,—a bright, smiling creature, silken-clad, patrician to the finger-tips. But it seemed to me that no heart of love looked out of the fair, careless face. I thought I would rather be Surgeon Sally, and know the sweetness of loving another better than myself.
“She is very beautiful,” I said, as I turned away.
“Yes; and sometimes I almost think I feel her lips, her bonny bright lips, touch my face, as they did that last day, and hear her say, ‘Don’t think, Sally, that I’m not sorry.’ Oh, my lot isn’t hard, ma’am. I might have lived my life through and never have known what it was to have something all my own to love. God was good.
“And after all, ma’am,” she added cheerfully, “there’s nothing happier in the world than to give all the pleasure you can to somebody.”
And I went away, feeling that the dwarf surgeon of the dolls’ hospital had learned the true secret of life.