as
covered with a cunningly fashioned wig of Cousin Molly Belle's own silky
auburn hair.

This last and transcendent touch was added after I went to bed one
night. The superb creation, arrayed in a lovely light purple French
calico frock that could be taken off at night and put on in the morning,
and sure enough underclothes, all tucked and trimmed, smiled from my
pillow into my eyes when I unclosed them at the touch of the morning
light.

I christened my beauty "Mollabella," and would not change the name for
her maker's gentle remonstrances and all my college cousin Burwell's
teasing.

Musidora had lapsed, little by little, into chronic invalidism, spending
much of her time in bed. She was uncomely to any eyes but mine, and I
would not subject her to unkind criticism. Her case was made hopeless by
the officious kindness of Argus, a Newfoundland puppy, in bringing her
to the playhouse one day after I had purposely left her tucked up snugly
under three blankets inside of my reversed cricket by the dining-room
fire. The attention was well meant, and he could not be expected to know
that to drag sickly Musidora by the left leg through the mud until the
infirm member parted company with the body, and to finish the journey
with the head between his teeth, was not a happy device by which to win
her owner's regard. I forgave him, in time, but Musidora was, after
this last misadventure, a problem. I wondered much, sadly and silently,
what other little girls did with doll-babies who died natural deaths.
Not like Rozillah, who was never mentioned in my hearing, unless I were
very naughty indeed, and heroic treatment was indicated.

The day after my return home, the question was solved.

In the fortnight of my absence great changes had befallen our household.
Lucy and her mother and the tiny scrap of a baby had died, and been laid
under the snow in the Burwell burying-ground on the hillside beyond the
Old Orchard. Mr. Bray had gone to Ohio along with the big covered wagon.
Alexander the Great went with him in the carriage. With tears in her
sweet eyes, my mother told me how fond the father was of Lucy's pet, and
how strangely the cat had acted in staying on Lucy's grave all the time
until Mr. Bray took him away by force and carried him off in the
carriage with him.

From my retinue of vassals I had, in the chicken playhouse, a fuller and
more circumstantial account of all that had passed during those gloomy
days. The pleas