says. So I put away my dear dolls, and I shall shut up the
playroom, also, for I could not think to pass by it each day and
not go in to see them, and that Sister Barbara will not allow. It
may be that no one will find my playroom till I show it myself to
my little children, if God wills that I have them, which I shall
pray always, now that I may not have my dolls any more. But if
that should not be, or I should be taken away, then I think no
harm to pray that a girl like myself may one day find my playroom
that father made for me,--my own room, where I have been a very
happy child. A man would never know what it meant, but a girl
would know, and if it should so hap, I pray her to be gentle with
the bedstead, for one leg is weakly; and if she will leave my dear
dolls, when she has well played with them, I shall bless her
always for a gentle maiden, wherever I be. So farewell, says
"HESTER AYTOUN."

All three girls were crying by this time, and little Gertrude laid
her head on her sister's shoulder and sobbed aloud. Bell smoothed
her hair with light, motherly touches, drying her own eyes the
while. Hildegarde sat silent for a while, the letter in her hand;
then she folded it again, and gently, reverently laid it again in
the doll's hand.

"Dear Hester!" she said, "we do know, dear; we do understand,
indeed."

And then, sitting on the floor by the pretty bedstead, and
speaking softly and tenderly, she told the two girls of that other
maiden who had lived and died in this old house,--the bright,
beautiful Hester Aytoun, who faded in her springtime loveliness,