r dinner nicely served on a tray.

Lottie got up, went into the next room, threw an old shawl over her
head, and stepped out of the side door into the woods, for the house
had not been built long, and all the clearing was on the other side.

Though it was winter, it was not very cold, and the woods were almost
as attractive as in summer.

Walking a few rods, Lottie sat down on her favorite seat, a fallen
tree trunk covered with moss.

"I declare, it's too bad!" she began to herself. "I believe May is
dying because it's so stupid here. I could 'most die myself. I wonder
if I couldn't do something to amuse her. Couldn't I buy something, or
make something," she went on, slowly turning over in her mind all her
resources. "Let me see,--I have two dollars left. I wish I could buy
her a set of chessmen! She and father play so much. Wait! wait!" she
cried excitedly, jumping up and dancing around; "I have it! I can make
her a set like Kate Selden's, or something like it, I know! Oh, dear!
won't that be splendid! How delighted she will be! But where'll I get
the figures?"

She sat down again more soberly, and fell into a brown study.

"My two dollars will buy enough china dolls, I guess, and I'll get
Aunt Laura to send them to me by mail."

This was a bright thought, and the more she thought of it, the greater
grew her plan. She remembered several things she could make, and
before she went into the house, she even ventured to dream of a tree.

That night a mysterious letter was written, the two dollars slipped
in, sealed, and directed, ready to give to the postman, an old man who
passed every day with mail for the village.

Never did ten days seem so long to Lottie as that particular ten days
which passed before she got her answer. Every day, at the postman's
hour, she ran up to the road and waited for him, all the time planning
the wonderful things she would do. At last, one day, the old man
stopped his horse, fumbled in his saddlebags, and brought out a
package directed to her.

She seized it, and ran off to open her treasure. What did the package
contain? Nothing but twenty-eight china dolls, some silver and gilt
paper, and some bits of bright silk.

"Auntie has got everything!" she exclaimed joyfully; "and now I can go
right to work."

Now the log house had but four rooms,--the living-room, where they
ate, and where old Nancy cooked at a big cave of a fireplace, in which
logs were burning from fall to spring; t