eam, my dear," said Mr. Starbird.
"This little man said he saw Patty playing on the scaffold before the
hay was got into the barn, and she had something round her doll's neck
that looked like a pocket. He didn't know any more than that; but he
'sort of mistrusted' that she might have left the doll on the scaffold,
and the men might have pitched hay right on top of it."

"Sure enough," exclaimed Dorcas, with a nervous laugh; "who knows but
she did?"

"Have you lost a doll, Patty?" asked William Parlin.

"No; I never."

"O, she doesn't know when she loses dolls," said Rachel; "she always
keeps more than a dozen or so on hand."

"Well, I was going to say," continued Mr. Starbird, "you could easily
find out whether there was any meaning to my dream. If there _is_ a doll
up there on the scaffold, the hay is getting so low you could scrape
round and find it."

"That's so," cried the twins.

"Not that it's really worth while, either," added Mr. Starbird; "for, as
I said, it was only--"

"But there isn't the least harm in going out to see," said Mary and the
twins, and William Parlin, all in a breath, as they started on a run for
the barn. Patty slipped down from her mother's arms and followed.

"Me! Me! Let me go first," she cried. And before any one else could do
it, her swift little feet were mounting the ladder, and next minute
tripping over the scaffold.

"O, look! O, catch! Here it is! Here is my dolly all up in the corner,
and here's a pocket round her neck!"

Dorcas, who was always rather nervous, sat on the barn floor and laughed
and cried herself into such a state that Mr. Starbird had to give her
his arm to help her back to the house.

There was a great time, you may be sure, when Patty shook the pocket
before everybody's eyes, and James rang the twenty-dollar piece on the
brick hearth to make sure it was good gold. Dorcas was so excited that
pink spots came in both her cheeks, and even James did not know what to
think. Betsey Gould started right off to Dr. Potter's, where Siller
Noonin happened to be, to tell Siller the story. Dorcas kept having
little spasms of laughing and crying, and the whole household had rather
a frightened look; for it was the most marvellous dream they ever heard
of.

"Well, mother, what do you think now of dreams?" said Moses. "Guess
you'll have to give it up."

Mrs. Lyman had been in her bedroom to put the gold piece into her
drawer, and she now came back and took up her