There were new and beautiful dolls with eyes that opened and shut, there were Kewpie dolls and peasant dolls, there were battered old wrecks that Sara had cherished but had not played with for months, for Sara was not one of your sentimental children who touchingly cherished her oldest doll and loved her the better that her bright color had been kissed away. The broken wrecks were relegated to positions of servitude; they were scalped when the children played Indians, they were thrown to the lions, and passed through as many vicissitudes as Pauline of the Moving Pictures, but respected or loved they were not, except on an occasion like this, when Sara, under the spurious excuse of obeying her mother cluttered up the room with their lamentable fragments.
It was this pretense of obedience that finally exasperated Alice and caused her at length to say:
"I'll pack this one, and you can take that one," and when Sara's rising remonstrance of, "Oh, why—" was spoken in the tone of Gladys Grayson, Alice's cup of bitterness overflowed. She reverted to the days of her grandmother, and without reasoning and in a tone of authority she said:
"March right down-stairs, Sara, and stay there, or it'll be the worse for you." Such was the menace in her tone that Sara, sniffing but obedient, departed. Later Sara came in the room when Alice's back was turned and deposited something in the trunk.
"Whatever you put in the trunk you can take out," cried Alice.
"What thing?" asked Sara with innocence.
Alice inspected the trunk; there was nothing visible.
"Clear out," she cried. "I don't want to see you again!"
With Sara out of the way you might have thought that
