Rebecca Mary
had slid out of bed obediently, but there had been a look on her
little brown face as of one bereaved. She had watched the pin
come out, and the nightgown unroll, in stricken silence. When it
hung released and limp over Aunt Olivia's arm she had given one
little cry:
"She's dead!"
The minister's wife was talking hurriedly. Her voice seemed a
good way off; it had the effect of coming nearer and growing
louder as Aunt Olivia stepped back across the years.
"Of course you are to do as you think best about giving it to her,"
the minister's wife said, unwillingly. This came of being a minister's wife! "But I think--I have always thought--that little girls ought--
I mean Rhoda ought--to have dolls to cuddle. It seems part of their--her--inheritance." This was hard work! If Miss Olivia
would not sit there looking like that--.
"As if I'd done something unkind!" thought the gentle little mother, indignantly. She got up presently and went away. But Aunt Olivia,
with the doll hanging unhealthily over her arm, followed her to
the door. There was something the Plummer honesty insisted upon Aunt Olivia's saying. She said it reluctantly:
"I think I ought to tell you that I've never believed in dolls.
I've always thought they were a waste of time and kept children
from learning to do useful things.
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