vince Tod that such is the case. What is the matter, Mollie?"

Mollie, leaning upon the dressing-table in her favorite attitude, was
looking rather discontented. She was looking very pretty, also, it might
be said. Her sleepy, warm brown eyes, being upraised to Dolly, showed
larger and warmer and browner than usual; the heavy brown locks,
tumbling down over her shoulders, caught a sort of brownish, coppery
shade in the flare of gas-light; there was a flush on her soft cheeks,
and her ripe lips were curved in a lovely dissatisfaction. Hence Dolly's
remark.

"I wish I was going," said the child.

Dolly's eyes flew open wide, in a very sublimity of astonishment.

"Wish you were going?" she echoed. "To the Bilberrys'?"

Mollie nodded.

"Yes, even there. I want to go somewhere. I think I should enjoy myself
a little anywhere. I should like to see the people, and hear them talk,
and find out what they do, and wear an evening dress."

Dolly gazed at her in mingled pity and bewilderment.

"Mollie," she said, "you are very innocent; and I always knew you were
very innocent; but I did not know you were as innocent as this,--so
utterly free from human guile that you could imagine pleasure in a
Bilberry rejoicing. And I believe," still regarding her with that
questioning pity, "--I believe you really _could_. I must keep an eye on
you, Mollie. You are too unsophisticated to be out of danger."

It was characteristic of her good-natured sympathy for the girl that it
should occur to her the next minute that perhaps it might please her to
see herself donned even in such modest finery as the white merino. She
understood her simple longings after unattainable glories so thoroughly,
and she was so ready to amuse her to the best of her ability. So she
suggested it.

"Put it on, Mollie," she said, "and let us see how you would look in it.
I should like to see you in full dress."

The child rose with some faint stir of interest in her manner and went
to the bed.

"It wouldn't be long enough for me if it wasn't for the train," she
said; "but the train will make it long enough nearly, and I can pull it
together at the waist."

She put it on at the bedside, and then came forward to the toilet-table;
and Dolly, catching sight of her in the glass as she advanced, turned
round with a start.

Standing in the light; the soft heavy white folds draping themselves
about her statuesque curves of form as they might have draped themselves