World_," Mollie said to herself. "She would be rather pretty if she
were properly dressed; she looks about my age. I wonder what sort of
time she had--horribly dull, probably. No hockey, no Guiding, no
fox-trots--I expect she danced the polka, and recited 'Lives of
great men all remind us', and got pi-jawed ten times a day. I can't
imagine how children endured life in those days. Thank goodness I
wasn't born till 1907! She does look rather nice, though--and oh! I
wish you could talk, my dear! I _am_ dull."

Just then Aunt Mary began to play the piano in the next room. She
played soft, old-fashioned tunes, so that her niece might be soothed
to sleep. Mollie did not recognize the tunes but she liked them;
they seemed to sympathize with her as she continued to look at the
prim little girl in the photograph.

"Perhaps she played those very tunes; she looks as if she practised
for one hour a day _regularly_."

As Mollie lay there, the sweet old music sounding in her ears and
her eyes steadily fixed on the face of that other child of long ago,
it seemed to her that the child smiled at her.

"I am getting sleepy," she said to herself, and shut her eyes. But
she did not feel sleepy and soon opened them again. This time there
was no mistake about it--the child in the photograph _was_ smiling,
first with her solemn eyes, and then with her prim little mouth.
Mollie was so startled that she let the album slip from her lap, and
it fell down between the sofa and the wall. She turned round, and,
after groping in the narrow space for a minute, she succeeded in
getting hold of the album again and pulled it up. As she raised her