red.

"I can't bear this," said the poor child, trembling. "I know I shall
die. I'm cold; I'm wet; I'm starving to death. I've walked a thousand
miles today, and they have done nothing but scold me from morning until
night. And because I could not find that last thing the cook sent me
for, they would not give me any supper. Some men laughed at me because
my old shoes made me slip down in the mud. I'm covered with mud now.
And they laughed. Do you hear?"

She looked at the staring glass eyes and complacent face, and suddenly
a sort of heartbroken rage seized her. She lifted her little savage
hand and knocked Emily off the chair, bursting into a passion of
sobbing--Sara who never cried.

"You are nothing but a DOLL!" she cried. "Nothing but a
doll--doll--doll! You care for nothing. You are stuffed with sawdust.
You never had a heart. Nothing could ever make you feel. You are a
DOLL!" Emily lay on the floor, with her legs ignominiously doubled up
over her head, and a new flat place on the end of her nose; but she was
calm, even dignified. Sara hid her face in her arms. The rats in the
wall began to fight and bite each other and squeak and scramble.
Melchisedec was chastising some of his family.

Sara's sobs gradually quieted themselves. It was so unlike her to
break down that she was surprised at herself. After a while she raised
her face and looked at Emily, who seemed to be gazing at her round the
side of one angle, and, somehow, by this time actually with a kind of
glassy-eyed sympathy. Sara bent and picked her up. Remorse overtook
her. She even smiled at herself a very little smile.

"You can't help being a doll," she said with a resigned sigh, "any more
than Lavinia and Jessie can help not having any sense. We are not all
made alike. Perhaps you do your sawdust best." And she kissed her and
shook her clothes straight, and put her back upon her chair.

She had wished very much that some one would take the empty house next
door. She wished it because of the attic window which was so near
hers. It seemed as if it would be so nice to see it propped open
someday and a head and shoulders rising out of the square aperture.

"If it looked a nice head," she thought, "I might begin by saying,
'Good morning,' and all sorts of things might happen. But, of course,
it's not really likely that anyone but under servants would sleep
there."

One morning, on turning the corner of the square after a visit t