here were Mary's. There
the fluffy gold of the doll's hair rioted gloriously across a pair of
black woolen socks, and the blue satin of its gown swept glistening
folds of sumptuousness across a red flannel petticoat. One rose-tipped
waxen hand, outflung, pointed, almost as if in scorn, to the corner of
the box where lay another doll, a doll in a brown delaine dress, a doll
whose every line from her worsted-capped head to her black-painted feet
spelled durability and lack of charm.

Polly Ann saw this, and sighed. She was thinking of Mary's little
crippled Nellie for whom the brown delaine doll was designed; and she
was remembering what that same Nellie had said one day, when they had
paused before a window wherein stood another just such a little
satin-clad lady as this interloper from the middle bureau drawer.

"Oh, Cousin Polly, look--look!" Nellie had breathed. "Is n't she
be-yu-tiful? Oh, Cousin Polly, if--if I had--one--like that, I don't
think I 'd mind even _these_--much," she choked, patting the crutches
that supported her.

Polly Ann had sighed then, and had almost sobbed aloud as she
disdainfully eyed her own thin little purse, whose contents would
scarcely have bought the gown that Miss Dolly wore. She sighed again
now, as she picked up the doll before her, and gently smoothed into
order the shining hair. If only this were for Nellie!--but it was n't.
It was for Julia's Roselle, Roselle who already possessed a dozen
French dolls, and would probably possess as many more before her doll
days were over, while Nellie--

With a swift movement Polly Ann dropped the doll back into the box, and
picked up the other one. The next moment the brown delaine dress was
rubbing elbows with a richly bound book and a Duchesse lace collar in
the middle bureau drawer. Polly Ann cocked her head to one side and
debated; did she dare ask Aunt Margaret to make the change?

With a slow shake of her head she owned that she did not. She knew her
aunt and her aunt's convictions as to the ethics of present-giving too
well. And, if she were tempted to doubt, there were the two sets of
presents before her, both of which, even down to the hemp twine and
brown paper in one and the red ribbons and white tissue-paper in the
other, proclaimed their donor's belief as to the proper distribution of
usefulness and beauty.

The two dolls did look odd in their present environment. Polly Ann
admitted that. Reluctantly she picked th