admiringly.

"Don't you remember when you ran to the door to listen to the street
band that was playing outside?"

"Oh, yes. Was it then?"

"It was then. Patty was so pleased to get it so secretly."

"I shall call it Patty," said Marian. "I shall love her very much;
she is so cunning and little, and I can do all sorts of things with
her that I can't do with my big doll." This tiny Patty was company
all the way home, and in a measure took the place of her lively
namesake. Marian had been obliged to rely upon her own invention and
imagination so much in her little life, which had lacked childish
comrades, that she could amuse herself very well alone or with
slight things.

Miss Dorothy watched her as she murmured to the wee Patty and at
last she said: "Have you had a good day, girlie?"

Marian cuddled up to her in the familiar way she had seen Patty do.
"Oh, it has been a wonderful day, and I am so thankful for Patty,"
she said.

"Big Patty or this little one?" Miss Dorothy touched the doll with
her gloved finger.

"For both. There is so much that is pleasant in the world, isn't
there? Every little while something comes along that you never knew
about before and it makes you glad. First you came, then there was
school and the girls, and to-day came Patty and your father. He
makes me feel very differently about fathers."

"He is a dear dad," said Miss Dorothy lovingly.

"Do you think mine will be like him? I've always thought of him as
being like grandpa, not that grandpa isn't very nice," she added
quickly, "but he doesn't think much about little girls, and never
says funny jokey things to them as your father does. He never seems
to notice the things I do, and your father talks to Patty about the
little, little things I never knew grown up men were interested in."

"That's because he has to be father and mother, too. Our mother died
when Patty was a baby, you know. Yes, daddy is a darling."

"I hope mine will be," said Marian earnestly. "I haven't any mother
either, so perhaps he will feel like being father and mother, too. I
wonder when I shall see him. I didn't use to think much about it,
but since I have written to him, and all that, I think much more
about him."

"That is perfectly natural, and I have no doubt but that when he
finds out that you want to see him he will want to see you, and he
will be crossing the ocean the first thing we know."

"Oh, do you really think so?"

"I shouldn't be at a