LITTLE

FOLKS.

"SHE SAT DOWN IN A CHAIR."

HERE, there, Miss Dolly! do be quiet now. I would not be naughty at Christmas for all the world, if I were you. It's never the time to be cross and disagreeable when everybody's thinking of presents."

"You want me to be good do you?"

just for what I can get, then, Two dark eyes looked up; two little cheeks were all crimson and tear-stained; two little hands clasped with passionate fervour to her bosom the oldest, most battered, yet best beloved, of all her large family of dolls.

I cannot pretend to judge between Nurse Alcock and her charge, little Miss Dorothy Verner, the vicar of Hazeley's youngest child. There may have been faults on both sides: I daresay there were; any way, there had been an outbreak, and the two were at variance.

It was the day before Christmas Day, and all the vicarage servants had so much extra to do, what with the coming home of the elder children from school, guests staying in the house, Christmas charities, and so on.

It was hardly to be wondered at if Dorothy,

who was only eight years old, did get a little put on one side and neglected at this season. Still less was it to be wondered at if the little lady, who was accustomed to be first in everything, should resent this neglect, and become troublesome and rebellious.

"I know what we'll do," went on Dolly, with a sob: "Queen Anne and I will go away, miles and miles away, and you'll never see us again."

"Very well. I don't care to have any naughty little girls here; but when my own good Miss Dolly comes back, then we shall be pleased."

And nurse went downstairs to the kitchen to help cook, who had her hands more than full, leaving Dolly and Queen Anne alone.

The early winter dark was just beginning to gather in the corners, and fill the great room with eerie shadows. Outside there was a white gleam from the crisp snow which covered all the lawns and walks in the vicarage garden.

It was very still and lonely to the child. Everybody else seemed busy and happy. Her brothers had gone out to skate on the mere, her sisters to help with the decorations in church, her father was busy in the parish.

Dorothy turned from the window, and gave Queen Anne another frantic embrace.

"Nobody wants us, so we'll go," she said, choking down something rising in her throat.

She went into her own little room that opened off the nursery, and there she sat down in a chair with dolly on her lap. But it was only for a few minutes; for suddenly she got out her oldest jacket and hat, feeling that frayed and much-worn garments were most in keeping with her present frame of mind. She dressed

Queen Anne in a woollen hood and shawl, carefully covering her face with a veil of gauze. Queen Anne's youthful beauty had long since become a thing of the past; but the more wan and dejected she was in appearance, the more the heart of her little mistress clave to her in this crisis of her life.

little self, and act independently; but to herself she admitted that if she could only creep into those arms she would gladly give up all independence. She could remember when she used to be able to do so, but that was all past; the only mother she had was a picture.

"Good-bye, dear picture-mother," she said.

After a careful examination of her treasures, all she cared to take was a photograph of her father in a little inlaid case, a present from him on her last birthday, and a much-thumbed volume of fairy tales. These she tied in her pocket-handkerchief, which she slung on her

arm.

Queen Anne was made to take a touching farewell of her people, especially of Lucinda Ethel, the doll with real hair and eyelashes, and a lovely waxen face, that came to Dolly last Christmas, but had never gained the place in her affections that Queen Anne had done. Lucinda Ethel stared straight before her right up at the ceiling, and so did all the other dolls of various ages and different degrees of beauty. Dolly caught up her favourite, whom she felt sure they despised, and simply saying, "I forgot; they don't care for you any more than nurse does for me," she passed out through the second door on to the staircase.

There were no lamps lighted on the stairs or in the lobby. Dolly crept down to the hall. The drawing-room door stood ajar, and the fire-glow came through it. Dolly remembered there was something in there she would like to take leave of, and so pushed open the door and entered. There was no one there, but the tea equipage still stood on the little Oxford table; a dish with cut slices of cake, and cups scattered about, showed that afternoon tea had been partaken of. The cut cake suggested to Dolly the necessity of providing refreshment for the contemplated journey, so she transferred a few of the slices from the dish to the bundle that contained her book and photograph.

Then she came and stood on the glowing hearth, and glanced up to a portrait over the mantel, and the sweet, tender face looked down upon the little solitary figure. Dolly wanted to feel glad she was going, but somehow she didn't. She certainly thought it a great thing to assert her

are happy 'cause you are in heaven, and maybe I shall come too some day."

But "some day" is little better than no day to a child who lives in the present.

A picture, after all, is only a picture, and this could not lay a detaining hand on Dolly. Nothing occurring to turn her from her foolish little purpose, she turned away without a sign of relenting in her face, crossed the hall, let herself out through the door, and went down the drive, and out through the gate on to the road.

Now she was quite alone, and more determined than ever to be brave, and to make Queen Anne brave too.

"You mustn't cry," she said; "we'll find another honge with the fairies, or perhaps with angels; and I think we'll go there now." 1

This was a brilliant idea. She knew that in the church was the figure of an angel, and Dolly bent her steps in that direction as soon as she had formed that resolve.

Along the trodden highway over the crisp white snow, with stars glimmering overhead and the pale moon rising, went she and Queen Anne. There was a private and nearer way to the church, across the vicarage gardens and through a meadow, but she preferred the road. Bell and Edith, her sisters, would be sure to take the former way home, and if they were to meet her and take her back to nurse, how disappointed Queen Anne would be!

On she trudged, and in due course she reached the church porch. A light gleamed down the south aisle. Some of the decorators were at work in the far corner. The nave and the chancel were all in shadow. It was in the chancel that the angel-figure stood, and it was easy for her to reach it without being seen by either Bell or Edith, whose heads she saw bent over their work, and whose voices she heard talking with other ladies. The pews

were old-fashioned high ones, and Dolly could pass between them without being seen.

It was a very ancient church, and contained many monuments, but the most beautiful of all were four white marble ones in the chancel, erected to the memory of members of the family of the great duke who was lord of the manor. They consisted of groups of statuary enshrined in alcoves of pure marble.

The one group which Dolly loved best, the group with the angel in it, commemorated the death of the late duchess. It was the three Parcæ, or Fates, lovely female figures the size of life, one seated at the distaff, another holding the spindle, and the third standing with open scissors ready to cut the thread in two. Dolly had no idea of the symbolical meaning of the group, but she loved to dream all sorts of lovely things about them when the solemn organ music rolled through the shadowy aisles. Behind them was the angel figure, with an inverted torch in one hand, and the other lifted towards heaven.

Dolly turned the button of one of the pews opposite, and let herself into its cushioned privacy, so that Queen Anne might learn to know the angel figure, and that her own little solitary soul might be filled with its beauty and purity.

I cannot pretend to tell you when the soft murmur of the voices of her sisters and their companions ceased to be heard by Dolly. While she and Queen Anne were dreaming there in the warm dark church, at home the family dinner was over, but no Dolly appeared at dessert. Mr. Verner rang, and inquired of nurse why Miss Dolly had not come down ; and nurse was obliged to confess that she had been helping cook, and had forgotten Miss Dolly. She would go and fetch her. Dolly was to be found in any part of the house.

But no

There was great consternation, and in the midst of it nurse recalled the child's declaration

that she would go away. Of course she had thought it only a childish threat, and had attached no importance to it at the time. It came back to her now with cruel significance, and she began to think that she had not been as careful of the poor little lonely creature as she ought to have been. Then she discovered

that Dolly's garden hat and jacket were missing from the peg in her wardrobe, and the shock of this discovery was more than sufficient punishment for any unintentional neglect.

Just as fathers, and brothers, and men, and maid-servants were preparing to continue the search outside of the house, all were startled by a strange and unexpected sound-the clear and solemn tolling of the church bell. The strokes were unequal, certainly, and so unlike the sexton's usual performance, that a wild idea. entered the minds of some of the projected search-party.

"Can Dolly have gone to her sisters in the church, and got locked up there?"

"Poor child! she will be dead of fright," said the vicar, in agony. "Run, Harold, run, and get the key."

Harold's long legs soon carried him over the ground, and when the church was entered they found poor Dolly with a face as white as that of the snow, tugging at the great rope, and Queen Anne propped up against one of the pews calmly regarding her.

Dolly had fallen asleep, dreamed, and awakened to find herself in solitude, with the moon shining in through the high windows. Fortunately she knew where the rope that pulled the one bell hung by the chancel arch, and by hanging on to it and swinging herself to and fro, had managed to make it sound.

When she saw the search-party enter the church, with the lanterns shining on their anxious faces, she jumped into her father's arms with a glad cry—

"I'll never, never run away again!"

My belief is that Queen Anne was the only one of them all who thoroughly enjoyed that adventure. If she had been prime favourite with her little mistress before, she was a still greater favourite for the future, and none of the other dolls had a chance beside her.

The last I heard of the matter was a remark intended for Queen Anne's private ear

"We must be good, Queen Anne; you and I ran away once, but we'll never do so again. Oh! wasn't it awful in that big dark church?”

But Queen Anne looked as though she had not minded in the least, and it is my own opinion that she rather liked being a heroine.

CHAPTER I.-THE TWO LUCYS.

T was all very miserable; no wonder the children felt wretched. Of course there were many children, not a mile away, far worse off than they; but they did not stop to think of that at all, and if they had done so, it would not have made them very much happier; for everything was just about as cheerless and dispiriting as it well could be.

Miss Pendleton was ill, very ill, and when you know that, it explains the whole matter. For Miss Pendleton was the life and soul of the place, always busy, always cheerful, ordering everything without fuss, ruling every one firmly, but without harshness, keeping the whole place going from morning to night, and from week to week, with a steady, comfortable regularity that could not be really felt and appreciated until it was missed.

It was very different now. A stranger was in her place, and Miss Pendleton was delivered over to the nurse and the doctor. The old routine was falling all to pieces. No bell might be rung to disturb the sick woman. The children came straggling in to the meals one after another, instead of trooping along the stone

passage with a merry rush. The bread-andmilk was cold, the porridge burnt, Mrs. Wing cross and snappish, for she knew little or nothing of the ways of the house, and when she sought to find them out, she received such contradictory information that she was fairly bewildered.

So Mrs. Wing left them to amuse themselves, and soon had to rush in to settle sundry disputes. Suspecting that big Lucy, with the defiant eyes, of being a ringleader, she made a dash at her, and led her away.

But her triumph was short. Lucy began to bellow and shake the door, and that when Miss Pendleton's very life depended upon quiet.

"Hush, hush!" cried Mrs. Wing. "Don't you know you will disturb Miss Pendleton."

Most mistaken argument; sharp-witted Lucy's reason told her that the more noise she made the sooner she would have her own way, and her heart placed no check upon her head.

And so it ended in Mrs. Wing hurriedly unlocking the door, and the triumph remaining with Lucy.

"I didn't think there was a child in this house would have done it!" she exclaimed reproachfully. "She's been like a mother to you, she has, and you wouldn't spare disturbing her at such a time as this. Aren't you ashamed?"