May I get her the doll, Miss Lucy?" cried Elsie, running
over to the chest of drawers where the ward's few playthings were
kept.

Isabel trotted after, her face shining with expectation.

Barely waiting for the desired permission, Elsie dived down into the
lower drawer, and, after a brief search among torn picture-books
and odds and ends of broken toy, brought forth a little battered
rubber doll, which had lost most of its coloring and all of its cry.
But Baby Isabel hugged it to her heart, and at once dropped to the
floor, crooning over her new treasure.

While the ward was thus discussing dolls, Mrs. Jocelyn and Polly,
downstairs, in the little lady's room, were conversing on the same
subject.

It was Polly's first visit since the night she had sung to Burton
Leonard, and they had talked of that any many other things.

"It is too bad for you to be shut up in a hospital all this
beautiful summer," lamented Mrs. Jocelyn. "If I were only well,
I'd carry you off home with me this very day, and we'd go driving
out in the country, and have woodsy picnics, and all sorts of
delightful things."

"I went to ride yesterday with Dr. Dudley," said Polly
contentedly.

"Yes, that's all right as far as it goes; but your pleasures are
too serious ones for the most part. You ought to be playing with
dolls--without a care beyond them. By the way, I never have
seen you with a doll yet."

"No, I have n't any," replied Polly sadly.

"But you have them up in the ward, don't you?"

"There's a little old rubber doll that somebody left because it
had n't any squeak--that's all."

"For pity's sake!" exclaimed the little lady. "The idea!--not
a single doll that can be called a doll! I never heard anything
like it! What do yo play with? Or don't you play at all?"

"Oh, yes!" laughed Polly. "We play games, and Dr. Dudley has
given me two story-books, and there are some toy soldiers--but
they're 'most all broken now. Then there's a big book with
pictures pasted in it--that's nice! There was Noah's Ark; but
a little boy threw Noah and nearly all the animals out of the
window, and before we found them the rain spoiled some of them,
and the rest were lost."

"I declare, it's pitiful!" sorrowed the little lady.

"Oh, we have a nice time!" smiled Polly.

"I believe you'd find something to enjoy on a desert, without a
soul within fifty miles!" laughed Mrs. Jocelyn.

"Guess I'd be lonesome!" chuckled Polly. "But I always thou