the fate of her old doll, Miranda, whom her own hands had thrust out into a
cold world.

Poor Miranda! After all these years to become the property of a thief! Mary
was the little thief's name. Hugging the tempting package close, Mary ran
and ran until she was out of breath. Her one thought was to get as far as
possible from the place where the bundle had lain. For she suspected that
the steps where she had found it led up to the doll's home. That was why in
her own eyes also she was a little thief. But now she had run so far and
had turned so many corners that she could not find her way back if she
would. There was triumph in the thought. Mary chuckled to herself as she
stopped running and began to walk leisurely in the neighborhood with which
she was more familiar.

She pinched the package gently. Yes, there could be no doubt about it. It
was a doll,--not a very large doll; but Mary reflected that she had never
thought she should care for a large doll. Undoubtedly it was a very nice
one. Had she not found it in a swell part of the city, on the steps of a
swell-looking house? Mary gloated over the doll as she fancied it; with
real hair, and eyes that opened and shut; with four little white teeth, and
hands with dimples in the knuckles. She had seen such dolls in the windows
of the big shops. But she had never hoped to have one for her very own.

"Maybe it will have on a blue silk dress and white kid shoes, like that one
I saw this morning!" she mused rapturously.

She pinched the spot where she fancied the doll's feet ought to be.

"Yes, she's got shoes, sure enough! I bet they're white, too. They _feel_
white. Oh, what fun I shall have with her,"--she hugged the doll