and rather too
much of a strain for Avrillia, but we can't make up our minds to give
it up."

"And then, when it's all over," continued Avrillia, "I make waffles
(aren't they good, Sara?) and we eat down here in the kitchen, and
relax, and have a lovely, cozy time. And it makes it doubly pleasant
when we have some congenial person to help us celebrate--like you,
Sara."

Sara's little heart swelled with love and pride. Her eyes traveled
once more over the shining little table, and the friendly faces of
Pirlaps and Avrillia, and the glowing little kitchen, and out through
the little window, where the fog-bushes were making long blue shadows,
and the fairy lights danced on the silver snow.

Never before had she stayed so late. But neither had she ever had such
a lovely time.

Chapter VI
The Little Lost Laugh

Sara had always intended to take her dolls with her to the Garden, but
every morning before the sixth morning she forgot it. On the sixth
morning, however, her arms were so full of dolls that she could not
take off her dimples. She had not foreseen that difficulty.

She had not really intended to bring them all. But the Brown
Teddy-Bear looked so fiercely sad that she decided at the very outset
that she could not leave him. He was not really a doll, of course, but
as Sara kept him dressed in a kerchief and full skirt, he had the
effect of a doll--a sort of Wolf-Grandmother-of-Red-Ridinghood doll.
And the Billiken looked so cheerful that Sara decided that she must
surely take him along, to reward him for being so unfailingly
pleasant. And the Japanese doll had to go, because he was the newest,
and because he was the only one who was large enough to wear the pink
tulle lady-doll's hat Sara's aunt had sent her on her birthday. His
head was as bare as an egg, because the little rosette of black hair
that distinguishes a Japanese doll had come unglued. This made the
effect of the hat a little odd; still, he could wear it. The Kewpie
was just too cunning to leave--that was all there was to that; and no
right-minded mother ever left the baby. So that made it necessary to
take the Baby doll with the long clothes. (That is, she should have
been wearing long clothes, but Sara's dolls never wore the clothes
that belonged to them; and this morning the Baby was tastefully
attired in a wide red sash, with the Japanese doll's paper parasol
stuck through it, li