56 THE DOLL AND HER FRIENDS.

anxiously awaited her return, They came in at |
last, Rose, Willy, and Margaret; and after esta-
blishing Willy on his sofa, Rose’s next care was to
visit me. “0 Willy! O Margaret!” she exclaimed, —
and burst into tears,

“What is the matter, my darling?” asked Mar-
garet.

Rose could not answer ; but Sarah was there to
tell the story, and do ample justice to my wrong’s.
Yet I could not help observing, in the midst of all
her indignation, the difference of her matiner to-
wards her present hearers and towards Geoffrey.
She never seemed on familiar terms with Willy,
much less with Margaret or Rose. She neither
cut jokes nor used rough language to them, but
treated them with the respect due to her master’s
children ; though, as I well knew, she was ex-
tremely fond of them, and disliked Geoffrey, in spite
of her familiarity with him.

I saw Geoffrey no more that day. Rose’s
young’ friends soon arrived, and consoled both her
and me by their kind Sympathy and attentions.
One made an elegant cap to supply the loss of m
wig’; another strung a blue necklace to hide the
black mark round my throat; Rose herself put me
to bed, and placed a table by my bedside covered
with teacups, each, she told ne, containing: a differ-