@Q Poll’s Story.

OU needn’t laugh at me just because] am yellow and covered
with tiny cracks and don’t happen tobe dressed like your other
dolls. I know I look funny and old-fashioned to you, but really
my heart is as young as ever it was.

And when your grandmama was a little girl this way of wear-
ing the hair was very fashionable, and it was considered quite

“ vulgar to wear heels on one’s shoes, and so mine were made as
you see, and were thought very genteel, indeed.

I was so happy yesterday, for Miss Martha said that we were to have com-
pany, and she took me out of my box, where I had been laid away for so long
that itis a treat to get out of my paper wrappings.

Her “grand-niece,” she said. So you are her grand-niece! Well! you favor
your grandmama, child. You are very like what she was at your age: the
same yellow hair and laughing mouth, only your eyes are not so blue nor your
skin so fair as hers was. Or aml forgetting? Was it her sister Betsy who
waslight? Yes, it was Betsy; I remember now, your grandmama was quite dark.
How one does forget in seventy years!

Iam a little stiff, you notice, but it’s no wonder, forit is fully twenty years
since I was last out of my box; then, too, we were taught in my time to stand
or sit very straight and stiff, and habits grow very strong upon one, you know.

How well I remember the last time Miss Martha had me out. Twenty
years ago—that was long before you were born, mydear. They gave me to your
Aunt Lucy to play with, I recollect. I don’t like to speak ill of your kinfolk,
child, but really your Aunt Lucy was a very rude girl. She laughed at my
oddly-dressed hair and made fun of my flat feet, and made the most odious
comparisons between me and an ill-bred china doll that she carried; and she
stuck pins into me to such an extent that I assure you I had a pain in my in-
side for hours.

She is a woman now and I understand that she is very well mannered and
gentle, but somehow it always gives me a turn even to think of her.

And your Uncle Rob, your great-uncle 1 mean, he used to tease me too.
He once tied me to the cat’s back and I was terribly frightened. To this day I
am afraid of cats and china dogs.

I know it sounds silly, but Icannot overcome my fear of china dogs. Now
your grandmama had one, a brown and white one, that used to sit upon the
parlor mantel, and he looked very gentle indeed, when, really, he was a most