"Their hair is banged like mine—don't you see?—out short right across their foreheads, so it don't come in their eyes: that is Charles the First style—so my aunt Tilly says."
"Oh, how I wish I had just one doll!"
"Haven't you one?"
"No; she's worn out. She was only rags to begin with, and now she's nothing, since Pete Smith tossed her in the mud-puddle."
"That was just as hateful as it could be."
"Yes. I cried all night—more than I did when father died, because, you see, he never did nothing but tell me to get out of the way, and go and earn money for him to spend in drink. But my dolly used to love me, and I loved her, and I always had her with me at night, and I told her stories, and played she was a queen."
"A queen! how funny!"
"I don't think so. Every ribbon I could get I dressed her in it, and once I found some beads which looked just like the things you see at the jewellers', and I put them on her, and she was grand; but Pete Smith took them off when he chucked her into the mud, and now she's good for nothing."
"Little girl, what are you doing here?" suddenly said a stern voice, and Lily's acquaintance shot like an arrow from a bow, and began plying vigorously her broom. Mrs. Douglas, too, came up at that moment, and pricing the dolls, ordered them to be sent to her.
"Mamma," said Lily, softly, "may I have just this one?"—showing her muff, into which she had stuffed the coveted article.