elen. Flossie no longer
cared about hiding down between the two logs, and Helen did not care
about anything but the white dress she was holding up as she scrambled
out of the hollow stump.

"It's my doll's dress!" she said over and over again. "It's my lost
doll's dress!"

"Are you sure?" asked Flossie, as she shook the leaves from her dress
and hair, and came over to her friend.

"Course I'm sure!" answered Helen. "Look, here's a place where I mended
the dress after Mollie tore it when she was playing with Grace Lavine's
dollie one day."

Mollie hadn't really torn her dress. Helen had done it herself lifting
her pet out of the doll carriage, but she liked to pretend the doll had
done it.

"Let's see the torn place," said Flossie, and Helen showed where a hole
had been sewed together.

"I 'member it," Helen went on, "'cause I sewed it crooked. I can sew
better now. It's my doll's dress all right."

"It's all wet," said Freddie, who, though a boy, was not too old to be
interested in dolls, though he did not play with them. "Maybe the
gypsies live around here," he went on, "and they washed your doll's
dress and hung it on the stump to dry."

"Maybe!" agreed Helen, who was ready to believe anything, now that she
had found something belonging to her doll.

"No gypsies live around here," said Flossie, "'cause we haven't seen
any. But maybe they live in the cave."

"The cave's far off," said Freddie. "But it's funny about that dress."

"I--I found it when I hid in the stump," explained the little visiting
girl. "First I thought it was a piece of paper, but as soon as I
touched it I knew it wasn't. Oh, now if I could only find Mollie!"

"Maybe she's in the stump, too," Freddie said. "If the gypsies washed
her dress they'd have to cover her up with leaves or bark so she
wouldn't get cold while her dress was drying."

"The gypsies didn't wash her dress," said Helen.

"How do you know?" asked Flossie.

"'Cause nobody washes dresses an' makes 'em all up in a heap an' puts
'em in a hollow stump," Helen went on. "You've got to hang a dress
straight on a line to make it dry."

"That's so," added Flossie. "You only roll a dress up the way this one
was rolled when you sprinkle it to iron, don't you, Helen?"

"Yep. Oh, I do wish I could find my Mollie!"

"Well, she must be somewhere around here if she isn't in the stump,"
insisted Freddie. "If the gypsies took off her dress they must have
dropped the doll. Let's