t?"

"Oh, I like almost anything--something short and sweet for such
beauties. Ain't they lovely? and are they all really yours?"

"I'm playing they are mine, and that I keep an orphan asylum. Don't you
want to be a nurse?"

"Oh, if you'd let me!--but I'm too dirty."

"No matter for that. See how the darlings smile at you. I mean to ask
mamma to buy them all. See, I can get one in my muff: she goes in
beautifully."

"So she does; but I like the one that's asleep best. She's awful
cunning. Have they any teeth, and real hair?"

"They are just cutting their teeth, and that's the reason I want a good
nurse; they are so troublesome. They haven't much hair, just a little
bang under their caps."

"A little what?"

"Their hair is banged like mine--don't you see?--out short right across
their foreheads, so it don't come in their eyes: that is Charles the
First style--so my aunt Tilly says."

"Oh, how I wish I had just one doll!"

"Haven't you one?"

"No; she's worn out. She was only rags to begin with, and now she's
nothing, since Pete Smith tossed her in the mud-puddle."

"That was just as hateful as it could be."

"Yes. I cried all night--more than I did when father died, because, you
see, he never did nothing but tell me to get out of the way, and go and
earn money for him to spend in drink. But my dolly used to love me, and
I loved her, and I always had her with me at night, and I told her
stories, and played she was a queen."

"A queen! how funny!"

"I don't think so. Every ribbon I could get I dressed her in it, and
once I found some beads which looked just like the things you see at the
jewellers', and I put them on her, and she was grand; but Pete Smith
took them off when he chucked her into the mud, and now she's good for
nothing."

"Little girl, what are you doing here?" suddenly said a stern voice, and
Lily's acquaintance shot like an arrow from a bow, and began plying
vigorously her broom. Mrs. Douglas, too, came up at that moment, and
pricing the dolls, ordered them to be sent to her.

"Mamma," said Lily, softly, "may I have just this one?"--showing her
muff, into which she had stuffed the coveted article.

"Lily dear, you don't want any more dolls, surely."

"Yes, mamma, just this one."

"Well, take it, child, though I really think it is foolish, when you
have so many."

Mrs. Douglas got into her carriage again, and Lily jumped in too. The
little sweeper looked wistfully after them; but