dress, which had a narrow frill of yellowish lace, basted at the
neck. It seemed to have been cast aside as partly worn out. Beneath this
lay a small black silk apron, which had silk shoulder-straps, bordered
with narrow black lace, and also little pockets trimmed with lace.
Dorry, gently thrusting her hand into one of these pockets, drew forth a
bit of crumpled ribbon, some fragments of dried rose-leaves, and a
silver thimble marked "K. R." She put it on her thimble-finger; it
fitted exactly.

"Oh dear!" thought Dorry, as, with flushed cheeks and quick-beating
heart, she looked at the dress and apron on her lap, "I wish Don would
come!" Then followed a suspicion that perhaps she ought to call him, and
Uncle George too, before proceeding further; but the desire to go on was
stronger. Aunt Kate was hers,--"my aunty, even more than Don's," she
thought, "because he's a boy, and of course doesn't care so much;" and
then she lifted a slim, white paper parcel, nearly as long as the trunk.
It was partly wrapped in an old piece of white Canton crape, embroidered
with white silk stars at regular intervals. Removing this, Dorry was
about to take off the white paper wrapper also, when she caught sight of
some words written on it in pencil.

"Dear Aunt Kate!" thought Dorry, intensely interested; "how carefully
she wrapped up and marked everything! Just my way." And she read:

_My dear little Delia: I am fourteen to-day, too
old for dolls, so I must put you to sleep and lay
you away. But I'll keep you, my dear dolly, as
long as I live, and if I ever have a dear little
girl, she shall wake you and play with you and
love you, and I promise to name her Delia, after
you. Kate Reed. August, 1852._

With a strange conflict of feeling, and for the moment forgetting
everything else, Dorry read the words over and over, through her tears;
adding, softly: "Delia! That's why my little cousin was named Delia."

And, as she slowly opened the parcel, it almost seemed to her that
Cousin Delia, Aunt Kate's own little girl, had come back to life and was
sitting on the floor beside her, and that she and Delia always would be
true and good, and would love Aunt Kate for ever and ever.

But the doll, Delia, recalled her. How pretty and fresh it was!--a sweet
rosy face, with round cheeks and real hair, once neatly curled, but now
pressed in flat rings against the bare dimpled shou