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here were Mary's. There the fluffy gold of the doll's hair rioted gloriously across a pair of black woolen socks, and the blue satin of its gown swept glistening folds of sumptuousness across a red flannel petticoat. One rose-tipped waxen hand, outflung, pointed, almost as if in scorn, to the corner of the box where lay another doll, a doll in a brown delaine dress, a doll whose every line from her worsted-capped head to her black-painted feet spelled durability and lack of charm. Polly Ann saw this, and sighed. She was thinking of Mary's little crippled Nellie for whom the brown delaine doll was designed; and she was remembering what that same Nellie had said one day, when they had paused before a window wherein stood another just such a little satin-clad lady as this interloper from the middle bureau drawer. "Oh, Cousin Polly, look--look!" Nellie had breathed. "Is n't she be-yu-tiful? Oh, Cousin Polly, if--if I had--one--like that, I don't think I 'd mind even _these_--much," she choked, patting the crutches that supported her. Polly Ann had sighed then, and had almost sobbed aloud as she disdainfully eyed her own thin little purse, whose contents would scarcely have bought the gown that Miss Dolly wore. She sighed again now, as she picked up the doll before her, and gently smoothed into order the shining hair. If only this were for Nellie!--but it was n't. It was for Julia's Roselle, Roselle who already possessed a dozen French dolls, and would probably possess as many more before her doll days were over, while Nellie-- With a swift movement Polly Ann dropped the doll back into the box, and picked up the other one. The next moment the brown delaine dress was rubbing elbows with a richly bound book and a Duchesse lace collar in the middle bureau drawer. Polly Ann cocked her head to one side and debated; did she dare ask Aunt Margaret to make the change? With a slow shake of her head she owned that she did not. She knew her aunt and her aunt's convictions as to the ethics of present-giving too well. And, if she were tempted to doubt, there were the two sets of presents before her, both of which, even down to the hemp twine and brown paper in one and the red ribbons and white tissue-paper in the other, proclaimed their donor's belief as to the proper distribution of usefulness and beauty. The two dolls did look odd in their present environment. Polly Ann admitted that. Reluctantly she picked th
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