guinea-pigs.

In vain was the new horse, with leather hoofs, with real hair, and a
horse-hair tail--in vain was that token of esteem from Uncle Charles
brought out of its stable, and unevenly yoked with a dappled pony
planted on a green, oval lawn, into Molly's own hay-cart. Molly's woe
was beyond the reach of hay-carts or horse-hair tails, however
realistic. Like Hezekiah, she turned her face to the nursery wall, on
which trains and railroads were depicted; and even when cook herself
rose up out of her kitchen to comfort her with material consolations,
she refused the mockery of a gingerbread nut, which could not restore
the friend with whom previous gingerbread nuts had always been equally
divided.

Presently a step came along the passage, and Charles, who had found no
one in the drawing-room, came in tired and dusty, and inclined to be
annoyed at having had to walk up from the station.

Molly flew to him, and flung her arms tightly round his neck.

"Oh, Uncle Charles! Uncle Charles! Vic is dead!"

"I am so sorry, Molly," taking her on his knee.

Nurse and the nursery-maid and cook withdrew, leaving the two mourners
alone together.

"He is _dead_, Uncle Charles. He was quite well, and eating Albert
biscuits with the dolls this morning, and now--" The rest was too
dreadful, and Molly burst into a flood of tears, and burrowed with her
head against the faithful waistcoat of Uncle Charles--Uncle Charles, the
friend, the consoler of all the ills that Molly had so far been heir to.

"Vic had a very happy life, Molly," said Charles, pressing the little
brown head against his cheek, and vaguely wondering what it would be
like to have any one to turn to in time of trouble.

"I always kept trouble from him except that time I shut him in the
door," gasped Molly. "I never took him out in a string, and he only wore
his collar--that collar you gave him, that made him scratch so--on
Sundays."

"And he was not ill a long time. He did not suffer any pain?"

"No, Uncle Charles, not much; but, though he did not say anything, his
face looked worse than screaming, and he passed away very stiff in his
hind-legs. Oh!" (with a fresh outburst), "when cook told me that her
sister that was in a decline had gone, I never thought," (sob, sob!)
"poor Vic would be the next."

A step came along the passage, a firm light step that Charles knew, that
made his heart beat violently.

The door opened and a familiar voice said:

"Molly!