"I must say that I think you're rather hard on her, Lucretia," said Maria, finally.
"I don't know as I've been any harder on her than you have," returned Lucretia. "I shouldn't have said to take away that rag baby if I'd said just what I thought."
"I think you'd better take it up to her, then, and stop that crying," said Maria.
Lucretia hastened into the north parlor without another word. She carried the rag baby up-stairs to young Lucretia; then she came down to the pantry and got a seed-cake for her. "I thought the child had better have a little bite of something; she didn't eat scarcely a mite of supper," she explained to Maria. She had given young Lucretia's head a hard pat when she bestowed the seed-cake, and bade her eat it and go right to sleep. The little girl hugged her rag baby and ate her cooky in bliss.
The aunts sat a while longer by the sitting-room fire. Just before they left it for the night Lucretia looked hesitatingly at Maria, and said, "I s'pose you have noticed that wax doll down to White's store, 'ain't you?"
"That big wax one with the pink dress?" asked Maria, faintly and consciously.
"Yes. There was a doll's bedstead there, too. I don't know as you noticed."
"Yes, I think I did, now you speak of it. I noticed it the day I went in for the calico. There was a doll baby's carriage there, too."
The aunts looked at each other. "I s'pose it would be dreadful foolish," said Lucretia.
"She'd be 'most too tickled to live," remarked Maria.