"All right, Beth. I'll open it again." Dick threw back the cover; and with a cry of dismay, Beth snatched up a doll from the box.
"My Lucy doll! My mos' beauty chile! Oh, oh, oh!" And she sank to the floor, hugging the doll to her and rocking back and forth in her grief. "My chile, my mos' beauty chile!" she moaned. "Your face is all in seven, five, ten pieces, and your eyes—— Berta! my Lucy's eyes are all gone!" Great sobs shook her frail, little form.
Berta flung her arms about her sister, doll and all, while Dick shifted uneasily from one foot to the other.
"Don't——don't cry, Beth. I'll ask Mother to get you another doll 'zactly like that one. It's all my fault, 'cause I told you to jump on the box. Mother'll get you a doll 'zactly like that one. I'll go with her to show her the kind."
"Oh, d——dear——m——m——me!" the little mother sobbed. "But she'll b——b——be some other d——dollie, n——not my Lucy d——doll what I love most of all. A——and 'sides——it isn't your fault——'c——'cause I jumped right——on t——top of her, so I d——did,——and——now she's d——deaded, so sh——she is! Oh, my poor little chile! M——my most beauty chile!"
"Oh, I say, Beth, don't cry like that! I'll tell you what we'll do. Let's have a fun'ral. You and Berta dress Lucy in her best white dress and put her in a nice white box with lace and shiny soft stuff and flowers all around her, and I'll dig a grave under that big rose bush in the garden, and we'll bury her. That's what they did with my little cousin when she died. My, she looked mighty pretty, only she was too white. And you two ought to wear black dresses and black veils hanging down behind, and——and——"
The little girls listened, eyes and mouths wide open.
"But what is a grave what you said you is going to dig, Dick?"
"It's a big hole in the ground, Berta, and——"
With a frightened scream, Beth sprang to her feet, and holding the doll close, ran from the room just as Aunt Mandy appeared at one door and Mary and Wilhelmina at the other.