"Mollie," he said, "I am very much afraid you will never succeed as a boy. It seems to me that even an ordinarily masculine girl of your age would have been clear-headed enough to see the absurdity of your little farce. It is nothing but a farce, mere babyishness. You have been playing with yourself and with your doll. No boy could have done it."
There was a short pause; then Mollie's voice piped out into a humble question as to what course a boy would have pursued in the matter.
"Why, that is clear enough," said Mr. John. "If you want to do what a boy would do, dispose of the doll on the shortest notice. Get it out of your sight and mind as soon as possible, and then never give it any more thought than you'd give the rattle you used to shake when you were a baby, or the rubber ring you cut your teeth on."
Could he be made to understand the immense difference between Helena and other toys? Could any words explain to him about the soul that had grown out of Mollie's love into the cloth and sawdust body? Mollie looked up to catch a sympathetic expression that should help her to tell him; but she did not find it.
"You don't understand," she said desperately.
"No?" said he.
"Mr. John," said Mollie, not looking him in the eye, "when you have a doll as long as I have had Helena, it is only natural that she should seem to you like a live person. If I didn't play with her at all, she'd seem real to me, and I shouldn't like to have her go away any more than I would mother."
"Which tells the secret that you have some sort of human fondness for the lifeless bundle of rags," said Mr. John, "and proves what I feared, that you are a very weak-minded little girl, Mollie."
"You wont believe in me at all," said Mollie. [page 10] "You wont think I am doing my best, and that I ever succeed. You are not like you used to be."
"That naturally follows your being different," said Mr. John. "Of course, we can't have the same feelings toward each other now as when you were contented to be a little girl and to let me treat you as one. I'm sorry you don't find me as agreeable as before, Mollie; but you must acknowledge that I am acting as a friend in doing all that I can to help you in your dear project."