But Poppy did not think of the work just then. Two dear little babies! And for her own! She was very very happy. She could scarcely eat any dinner, although Mrs. Lee took her across the court into her house, that she might get some with her children, and it was a great trial to her when her mother told her she must go back to school as usual.
'You'll get little enough schooling now, go while you may, Poppy,' she said.
The excitement in the court was not over when the child passed down it on her way to school.
The neighbours came to their doors when they caught sight of her red cloak, and some of them said, 'Poor Poppy!' and some of them shook their heads mournfully without saying anything. The child could not understand why they all pitied her so much. She thought they ought to be glad that such a nice present had come for her.
On her way to school Poppy passed under a curious old gateway, which had been built many hundred years ago, and which still stood in the old wall of the city. Under the shadow of this ancient Bar was a shop—such a pretty shop Poppy thought it, and it was very seldom that she went under the gateway without stopping to look in at the window. For there, sitting in a row, and looking out at her, were a number of dolls—beautiful wax dolls with curly hair and blue eyes and pink cheeks. And Poppy had never had a wax doll of her own. Her only doll was an old wooden creature with no real hair, and with long straight arms; she could never even sit down, for her back and her legs would not bend, and when Poppy came home and looked at her after she had been gazing in the toy-shop window she thought her very ugly indeed.
One day when Poppy was standing under the Bar, a lady and a little girl came up to the shop. The little girl was just as tall as Poppy, and she stood beside her gazing at the row of dolls.
'I should like that one, mother,' she said; 'the one with yellow hair and a red necklace.'
That was Poppy's favourite too; she would have chosen that one, she said to herself.
The lady had gone into the shop and bought the doll, and Poppy watched the happy little girl walk away with it in her arms. And then poor Poppy went into a dark corner under the Bar, and cried a little to herself before she went on to school. If only her mother had money enough to buy her a wax doll!
But on the day Poppy's presents came she did not even stop for a moment to look at the wax dolls. What stupid creatures they seemed to her now! Her babies could open and shut their eyes, and none of these dolls could do that.