oom and rested upon the
bed. Her blue eyes and Mr. Hamlin's brown ones met and mingled. Without
a moment's hesitation she moved to the bedside. Taking her doll's hands
in her own, she displayed it before him.

"Isn't it pitty?"

Mr. Hamlin was instantly his old self again. Thrusting his hand
comfortably under the pillow, he lay on his side and gazed at it long
and affectionately. "I never," he said in a faint voice, but with
immovable features, "saw anything so perfectly beautiful. Is it alive?"

"It's a dolly," she returned gravely, smoothing down its frock and
straightening its helpless feet. Then seized with a spontaneous idea,
like a young animal she suddenly presented it to him with both hands and
said,--

"Kiss it."

Mr. Hamlin implanted a chaste salute on its vermilion cheek. "Would you
mind letting me hold it for a little?" he said with extreme diffidence.

The child was delighted, as he expected. Mr. Hamlin placed it in a
sitting posture on the edge of his bed, and put an ostentatious paternal
arm around it.

"But you're alive, ain't you?" he said to the child.

This subtle witticism convulsed her. "I'm a little girl," she gurgled.

"I see; her mother?"

"Ess."

"And who's your mother?"

"Mammy."

"Mrs. Rivers?"

The child nodded until her ringlets were shaken on her cheek. After
a moment she began to laugh bashfully and with repression, yet as
Mr. Hamlin thought a little mischievously. Then as he looked at her
interrogatively she suddenly caught hold of the ruffle of his sleeve.

"Oo's got on mammy's nighty."

Mr. Hamlin started. He saw the child's obvious mistake and actually felt
himself blushing. It was unprecedented--it was the sheerest weakness--it
must have something to do with the confounded air.

"I grieve to say you are deeply mistaken--it is my very own," he
returned with great gravity. Nevertheless, he drew the coverlet close
over his shoulder. But here he was again attracted by another face at
the half-opened door--a freckled one, belonging to a boy apparently a
year or two older than the girl. He was violently telegraphing to her to
come away, although it was evident that he was at the same time deeply
interested in the guest's toilet articles. Yet as his bright gray eyes
and Mr. Hamlin's brown ones met, he succumbed, as the girl had, and
walked directly to the bedside. But he did it bashfully--as the girl had
not. He even attempted a defensive explanation.

"She hadn't ou