Only think what a beautiful dress it will make!" said a woman.

"And see how pretty it goes with the dolly's light hair," said
Fanny.

"Ellen," whispered Andrew, "you tell father, and he'll buy you a
whole pound of candy down to the store."

"I shouldn't wonder if I could find something to make your dolly a
cloak," said a woman.

"And I'll make her a beautiful little bonnet, if you'll tell," said
another.

"Only think, a whole pound of candy!" said Andrew.

"I'll buy you a gold ring," Eva cried out--"a gold ring with a
little blue stone in it."

"And you shall go to ride with mother on the cars to-morrow," said
Fanny.

"Father will get you some oranges, too," said Andrew.

But Ellen sat silent and unmoved by all that sweet bribery, a little
martyr to something within herself; a sense of honor, love for the
lady who had concealed her, and upon whom her confession might bring
some dire penalty; or perhaps she was strengthened in her silence by
something less worthy--possibly that stiff-neckedness which had
descended to her from a long line of Puritans upon her father's
side. At all events she was silent, and opposed successfully her one
little new will to the onslaught of all those older and more
experienced ones before her, though nobody knew at what cost of
agony to herself. She had always been a singularly docile and
obedient child; this was the first persistent disobedience of her
whole life, and it reacted upon herself with a cruel spiritual hurt.
She sat clasping the great doll, the pinks, and the pink cup and
saucer before her on the table--a lone little weak child, opposing
her single individuality against so many, and to her own hurt and
horror and self-condemnation, and she did not weaken; but all at
once her head drooped on one side, and her father caught her.

"There! you can all stop tormentin' this blessed child!" he cried.
"Ellen, Ellen, look at Father! Oh, mother, look here; she's fainted
dead away!"

"Fanny!"

When Ellen came to herself she was on the bed in her mother's room,
and her aunt Eva was putting some of her beautiful cologne on her
head, and her mother was trying to make her drink water, and her
grandmother had a glass of her currant wine, and they were calling
to her with voices of far-off love, as if from another world.

And after that she was questioned no more about her mysterious
journey.

"Wherever she has been, she has got no harm," said Mrs. Zelotes
Brewster, "and th