e could
only tell that she had long brown hair, and wore beautiful dresses,
sometimes white, sometimes blue, sometimes pink. She knew she must be
beautiful, and wondered if she were a princess. She always pictured
her so, and she was always on the watch for her. At times she came out
with something in her arms, which Molly knew was a doll, and Molly used
to fancy how the doll looked; it must have golden ringlets, and blue
eyes, and pink cheeks, and look like a princess. Molly felt sure that
the little girl must be a princess. The doll would be dressed in silk
and embroidery. She set to work, and with her scraps, left from the
pieces Mrs. O'Meath brought her, made a dress and a whole suit of
clothes for it, such as she thought it ought to have. The dress was
nothing but a little piece of shiny cambric, trimmed with her silk
bits, and the underclothes were only cotton; but she flounced the dress
with ends of colored thread and embroidered it beautifully, and folded
it up in a piece of paper and stuck it away under the mattress where
she kept her treasures.

[Illustration: "_COULD SEE A LITTLE GIRL WALKING ABOUT WITH HER NURSE_"]

One day she saw the little girl on the gallery playing with something
that was not a doll; it ran around after her and hung on to her skirt.
At first Molly could not see it well; but presently the little girl
lifted it up in her arms, and Molly saw that it was a little dog, a
fat, grayish-yellow puppy. For several days it used to come out and
play with its little mistress, or she would play with it, lifting it,
carrying it, feeding it, hugging and kissing it. Molly sighed. Oh,
how she would have liked to have a little dog like that! Her little
room looked darker and gloomier than ever. She turned over and tried
to sleep, but could not. She was so lonely. She had nothing; she had
never had anything. She could not ever hope to have a doll, but, oh,
if she had a puppy! Next day she thought of it more than ever, and
every day afterwards she thought of it.

She even dreamed about it at night: a beautiful, fat, yellow puppy came
and got up by her on the bed and cuddled up against her and went to
sleep. She felt its breathing. She actually saved some of her dinner,
her bones, next day, and hid them, to feel that she had some food for
it, though she was hungry herself. No puppy came, however, and she had
to give it up and content herself with looking out for the puppy on the
white g