for the best parlor, but Ellen had insisted upon it. "She
isn't going to be put away up garret because I have outgrown her,"
said she. "She's going to sit in the parlor as long as she lives.
Suppose I outgrew you, and put you up in the garret; you wouldn't
like it, would you, mother?"

"You are a queer child," Fanny had said, laughing, but she had
yielded.

When young Lloyd went close to examine the doll, Ellen's heart stood
still. Suppose he should recognize it? She tried to tell herself
that it was impossible. Could any young man recognize a doll after
all those years? How much did a boy ever care for a doll, anyway?
Not enough to think of it twice after he had given it up. It was
different with a girl. Her doll meant--God only knew what her doll
meant to her; perhaps it had a meaning of all humanity. But the boy,
what had he cared for the doll? He had gone away out West and left
it.

But Lloyd remembered. He stared down at the doll a moment. Then he
took her up gingerly in her fluffy pink robes of an obsolete
fashion. He held her at arm's length, and stared and stared.
Suddenly he parted the flaxen wig and examined a place on the head.
Then he looked at Ellen.

"Why, it is my old doll," he cried, with a great laugh of wonder and
incredulity. "Yes, it is my old doll! How in the world did you come
by my doll, Miss Brewster? Account for yourself. Are you a child
kidnapper?"

Ellen, who had risen and come forward, stood before him, absolutely
still, and very pale.

"Yes, it is my doll," said Lloyd, with another laugh. "I will tell
you how I know. Of course I can tell her face. Dolls look a good
deal alike, I suppose, but I tell you I loved this doll, and I
remember her face, and that little cast in her left eye, and that
beautiful, serene smile; but there's something besides. Once I
burned her head with the red-hot end of the poker to see if she
would wake up. I always had a notion when I was a child that it was
only a question of violence to make her wake up and demonstrate some
existence besides that eternal grin. So I burned her, but it made no
difference; but here is the mark now--see."

Ellen saw. She had often kissed it, but she made no reply. She was
occupied with considerations of the consequences.

"How did you come by her, if you don't mind telling?" said the young
man again. "It is the most curious thing for me to find my old doll
sitting here. Of course Aunt Cynthia gave her to you, but I didn't