meant to show you my old toys some day. I dare say you children think
it strange that I have kept such shabby things so long, but when I was
a little girl I did not have such beautiful toys as you have now, and
the few I had I loved very dearly."

"Was this your nursery, Aunt Jane," Ann asked.

"Yes, dear. I slept all alone in the big bed, and I kept my toys
always in the old cupboard. I spent many and many an hour curled up on
that window-seat, playing with my doll. Yes, I did have others, Ann,
but I think I loved the corn-cob doll best of all, perhaps because she
was the least beautiful."

"Didn't you have any little boys to play with?" Rudolf asked. "Other
boys beside father and Uncle Jim, I mean."

"There was one little boy who came sometimes," Aunt Jane said. "He
lived in the nearest house to ours, though that was a mile away. Those
were his tin soldiers you saw in the box. He gave them to me to keep
for him when he went away to school, and thought himself too big to
play at soldiers any more."

"And when he came back from school, did he used to come and see you?"

"Yes, he used to come every summer till he got big."

"And what did the little boy do when he got big, Aunt Jane?"

"When he got big," said Aunt Jane slowly, looking very hard into the
fire, "he went away to sea."