"Two little soldiers, blowing up a Hun--
The darned thing--exploded--
And then there was--One--"

"Oh, Emily, did you ever hear anything so funny?"

Emily couldn't see the funny side of it. It was tragic and it was
disconcerting. "I don't know what to do. Perhaps you'd better call a
taxi."

"He's shivering, Emily. I believe I'll make him a cup of chocolate."

"Dear child, it will be a lot of trouble--"

"I'd like to do it--really."

"Very well." Emily was not unsympathetic, but she had had a rather
wearing life. Her love of toys and of little children had kept her
human, otherwise she had a feeling that she might have hardened into
chill spinsterhood.

As Jean disappeared through the door, the elder woman moved about the
shop, setting it in order for the night. It was a labor of love to put
the dolls to bed, to lock the glass doors safely on the puffy rabbits
and woolly dogs and round-eyed cats, to close the drawers on the
tea-sets and Lilliputian kitchens, to shut into boxes the tin soldiers
that their queer old customer had craved.

For more than a decade Emily Bridges had kept the shop. Originally it