"Aunt Faith," said Grace, as she reached the piazza, "that wicked Tom
put Estella Camilla Wales in her wagon, and made Pete draw her all
over. It's a wonder her nose wasn't broken and her eyes knocked out.
If they had been, that would have been the end of her, like the last
ten dolls I have had."

"Not ten, surely, my dear?"

"Yes, Aunt Faith, ten whole dolls! Polly he painted black to make her
like the Queen of Sheba; he made Babes in the Woods of Beauty and
Jane, and it rained on them all night; Isabella and Arabella I found
on the clothes-line all broken to pieces, and he said they were only
dancing on a tight rope; he sent Rose and Lily,--the paper-dolls, you
know,--up in the air tied to the tail of his kite; the rag-baby he
took for a scarecrow over his garden; and surely, Aunt Faith, you have
not forgotten how he made Jeff Davis on the apple-tree, out of my dear
china Josephine, or how he blew up Julia Rubber with his cannon last
Fourth of July, when I lent her to him for the Goddess of Liberty?"

"Well, Gem, I did not realize that you had suffered so much. Take good
care of Estella, and perhaps Santa Claus will make up your losses."

Grace, or Gem, as she was called from the three initials of her names,
Grace Evans Morris,--G. E. M.,--ran off into the house to look up
Estella, leaving Aunt Faith once more alone.

On a rustic seat in the arbor sat Sibyl Warrington reading. Her golden
hair was coiled in close braids around her well-shaped head, her firm
erect figure was arrayed in a simple dress of silver gray, and