WHY," cried her grandmother, "you've spent your money, Sara! You've got the book."
"But I want dolls' coats," cried Sara. "I got to have 'em."
"You've got a lovely, lovely book instead. That will last you when the dolls are broken and the dolls' coats worn out."
"They'll never be broken!" cried Sara in the outraged tone of a mother who has been told she will still have her grand piano when her children are dead.
"Oh, I want coats!" she cried. She slipped to the floor, buried her face in her hands and sobbed, not with anger but with grief, the awful grief of grown-ups that occasionally smites children. Her mother and her grandmother stood before her.
"Don't be naughty, Sara," came feebly from her grandmother's lips; but Alice had nothing to say. As well tell a poor mother not to be naughty when she has had in sight warmth and comfort for her children for the winter and then had her money bamboozled from her.
"But why can't I have coats? Why can't I have coats? I'll give them back the book," she cried.
Sara flung herself, with the tragic gesture of one whose heart had been broken completely, upon her mother's chest, and there she remained sobbing while her grandmother murmured:
"Really, you must stop this. Come, let us divert her mind. The auditorium is decorated with canary birds; let's take her up there."
Again they practiced upon Sara the sort of spiritual
