he Little Girl's dolls laid out like little, white-draped
corpses in one of her bureau-drawers. The row of stolid little faces
gazed up at them with the mystery of the Sphinx in all their
glittering eyes. It was the Shining Mother who shut the drawer, but
first she kissed the faces.

After all, the Ogre discovered the last little link of the chain. He
brought it home in his arms from the gardener's lodge, and laid it on
the Little Girl's white bed. It was very still and pitiful and small.
The took the gardener's little boy's best clothes off from it and put
on the soft white night-gown of the Little Girl. Then, one on one
side and one on the other, they kept their long hard vigil.

It was night when the Little Girl opened her eyes, and the first
thing they saw was the chairful of little girl-clothes the Shining
Mother had set beside the bed. Then they saw the Shining Mother.
Things came back to the Little Girl by slow degrees. But the look in
the Shining Mother's face--that did not come back. That had never
been there before. The Little Girl, in her wise, old way, understood
that look, and gasped weakly with the joy and wonder of it. Oh, the
joy! Oh, the wonder!

"But I tried to be one," she whispered after a while, a little
bewildered still. "I should have done it, if I hadn't died. I
couldn't help that; I felt it coming on. Prob'ly, though, I shouldn't
have made a very good one."

The Shining Mother bent over and took the Little Girl in her arms.

"Dear," she whispered, "it was the Boy that died. I am glad he died."

So, though the Ogre and the Shining Mother had not found their Boy,
the Little Girl had found a father and mother.

Chapter VI

The Lie

The Lie went up to bed with him. Russy didn't want it to, but it
crept in through the key-hole,--it must have been the key-hole, for
the door was shut the minute Metta's skirt had whisked through. But
one thing Russy had to be thankful for,--Metta didn't know it was
there in the room. As far as that went, it was a kind-hearted Lie.
But after Metta went away,--after she had put out the light and said
"Pleasant dreams, Master Russy, an' be sure an' don't roll
out,"--_after that!_

Russy snuggled deep down in the pillows and said he would go right to
sleep; oh, right straight! He always had before. It made you forget
the light was out, and there were queer, creaky night-noises all
round your bed,--under it some of 'em; over by the bureau some of
'em; a