who was Sarah
Jane's especial friend, said she would go home with her that very
night--she didn't believe her mother would care--but they were going to
have company at tea, and she was afraid if she were late, and had to sit
at the second table, that she wouldn't get any currant tarts.

Sarah Jane did not urge her; she had a shy little pride of her own; but
she felt deeply hurt that Ruth could prefer currant tarts to a sight of
Lily Rosalie.

She was rather apt to loiter on her way home. There was much temptation
to at this time of the year, when the meadows on either side of the road
were so brimful of grass and flowers, when the air was so sweet, and so
many birds were singing. There was a brook on the way, and occasionally
Sarah Jane used to stop and have a little secret wade. It was one of
those pleasures which, although not actually prohibited, was doubtful.
Sarah Jane had at times got the hem of her little blue calico gown
draggled, and met with a reprimand at home.

But to-night neither nodding way-side flowers nor softly rippling brook
had any attraction for her. Straight home, her little starched white
sun-bonnet pointing ahead unswervingly, her small pattering feet never
turning aside from the narrow beaten track between the way-side grasses,
she went to Lily Rosalie Violet May.

She found her just as beautiful as when she left her. That long day of
absence, filled in with her extravagant childish fancy, had not caused
her charms to lessen in the least.

Sarah Jane ran straight to the linen chest, in whose till she had hidden
for safety the precious doll, and there she lay, her indigo blue eyes
staring up, smiling at her with the sweet cranberry-colored smile which
Serena had fixed on her face. Sarah Jane caught her up in rapture.

Her mother told Serena that night that she didn't know when she'd seen
the child so tickled with anything as she was with that doll.

"She didn't carry it to the school, did she?" said Serena.

"No. I guess she won't want to, as long as you told her not to," replied
her mother.

Sarah Jane had been always an obedient little girl; but--she had never
before had Lily Rosalie Violet May. Her mother did not consider that.

Sarah Jane did not have a pocket made in her dress; it was not then the
fashion. Instead, she wore a very large-sized one, made of stout cotton,
tied around her waist by a string under her dress skirt. The next day,
when Sarah Jane went to school, she carri