ery was
just flying by! Then I was put back in the grip.

"When next I was taken from the grip I was in a large, clean, light room
and there were many, many girls all dressed in white aprons.

"The stranger friend showed me to another man and to the girls who took
off my clothes, cut my seams and took out my cotton. And what do you
think! They found my lovely candy heart had not melted at all as I
thought. Then they laid me on a table and marked all around my outside
edges with a pencil on clean white cloth, and then the girls re-stuffed
me and dressed me.

"I stayed in the clean big light room for two or three days and nights
and watched my Sisters grow from pieces of cloth into rag dolls just
like myself!"

"Your SISTERS!" the dolls all exclaimed in astonishment, "What do you
mean, Raggedy?"

"I mean," said Raggedy Ann, "that the Stranger Friend had borrowed me
from Marcella so that he could have patterns made from me. And before I
left the big clean white room there where hundreds of rag dolls so like
me you would not have been able to tell us apart."

"We could have told _you_ by your happy smile!" cried the French dolly.

"But all of my sister dolls have smiles just like mine!" replied Raggedy
Ann.

"And shoe-button eyes?" the dolls all asked.

"Yes, shoe-button eyes!" Raggedy Ann replied.

"I would tell you from the others by your dress, Raggedy Ann," said the
French doll, "Your dress is fifty years old! I could tell you by that!"

"But my new sister rag dolls have dresses just like mine, for the
Stranger Friend had cloth made especially for them exactly like mine."

"I know how we could tell you from the other rag dolls, even if you all
look exactly alike!" said the Indian doll, who had been thinking for a
long time.

"How?" asked Raggedy Ann with a laugh.

"By feeling your candy heart! If the doll has a candy heart then it is
you, Raggedy Ann!"

Raggedy Ann laughed, "I am so glad you all love me as you do, but I am
sure you would not be able to tell me from my new sisters, except that I
am more worn, for each new rag doll has a candy heart, and on it is
written, '_I love you_' just as is written on my own candy heart."

"And there are hundreds and hundreds of the new rag dolls?" asked the
little penny dolls.

"Hundreds and hundreds of them, all named Raggedy Ann," replied Raggedy.

"Then," said the penny dolls, "we are indeed happy and proud for you!
For wherever one of the new Raggedy Ann