"Oh, Uncle, it is too bad for you to speak so! You know I didn't mean to play with it. It isn't a dolly to me; she's more like—like something with life. But you can shut her up in the dark, if you want to."
"Dorry! Dorry!" said Don, reproachfully. "Don't be so excited."
In a flash of thought, Dorry made up her mind to speak—now or never.
"Uncle!" said she, solemnly, "I am going to ask you a question; and, if it is wrong, I can't help it. What is the reason that you always feel so badly when I speak of Aunt Kate?"
He looked at her in blank surprise for an instant; then, as she still awaited his reply, he echoed her words, "Feel badly when you speak of Aunt Kate! Why, my child, what do you mean?"
"I mean, Uncle dear, that there is a secret in the house; something you have never told Don and me. It's always coming up and making mischief, and I don't think it's right at all. Neither does Don."
"That's so, Uncle," said Donald, emphatically; "we feel sure there is something that gives you trouble. Why not let us share it with you? Remember, we are not little children any longer."
The uncle looked quickly from one to the other, mentally deciding that the children could be told only the facts that were positively known to him; then seating himself on the corner of a large chest, he drew Don and Dorry towards him.
"Yes, my children," he said, in his own hearty way, as if already a load had been taken from his mind, "there is something. It is right that I should tell you, and this is as good a time as any. Put the doll away, Dorry" (he spoke very gently now), "wherever you please, and come down stairs. It is chilly up here—and, by the way, you will catch cold in that thin gown. What have we been thinking of all this while?"
"Oh, I'm as warm as toast, Uncle," she replied, at the same time taking her pretty merino dress from the old chair upon which she had thrown it, scarcely an hour ago; "but I suppose it's always better to be on the safe side, as Liddy says."