away and hide somewhere," she said at last.

Creeping off the bed very cautiously, she was stealing away, when
something seized her again. She gave a cry of despair, and looking up,
saw Winnie's sweet face.

"Who are you?" she asked. "Are you a new doll?" holding her gently but
firmly.

"Oh, Winnie!" said Bessie, and hid her face in shame. Augusta came
mincing up with a triumphant air, and related the action of the fairy.

"Now it's your turn," she said, handing the whalebone to Winnie. But she
tossed it indignantly aside.

"Strike her! Never! No; I would rather remember her kindness to me.
Don't cry, little mother," she added, stooping to kiss her. "If the
fairy comes again, I will ask her to change you back."

"No, no!" cried Augusta and Grace, in a terrible fright, but Bessie did
not hear. She was sobbing with her face in Winnie's neck.

"Oh, Winnie! Winnie! how can you be so kind? I would rather you gave me
a beating."

But Winnie wiped her eyes, and smiled so brightly on her that Bessie's
heart began to revive a little. Ere long they were playing together, and
it would have been rare sport for any child to see Winnie wheeling
Bessie in a tiny tin cart no bigger than a match-box. Then they had a
grand game of hide-and-seek in the stocking basket Annie had left on the
floor. Grace soon joined them, while Augusta, quite gracious by this
time, sat eying them complacently from her arm-chair.

* * * * *

"Bessie! Bessie! your mamma's come in, and wants to see you."

Bessie started up, rubbing her eyes. She looked in a dazed sort of way
at Annie, then at the corner where she kept her dolls. There they sat,
all three in a row as usual.

"Who put them there--my dolls? Did they really whip me?" she asked,
confusedly. Then she blushed, and hung her little head.

"Who put thim there? Why, I reckon they got tired of lying on the bed,
and walked over to their chairs," said Annie, with a mischievous gleam
in her eye.

"_You_ put them there," said Bessie; but she wished she could feel quite
sure. Catching up her darling Winnie, she walked off to her mother's
room.

All the rest of that day Bessie treated Augusta and Grace with the
utmost respect; and when she had undressed them and put them to bed, she
lingered as if anxious to say something. At last she stooped down and
whispered: "I don't believe it's true; but I'll never whip you or get
into such a passion again. I didn't know