“The darling baby!  She shall have her doll if it takes—­” Aunt Evelyn stopped thoughtfully.

It would take something serious to buy and equip the doll that Robina, with eight-year-old definiteness, had specified.  The girl in the Red Cross dress read the letter over.

“Dear Aunt Evelyn,” began Robina and struck no snags so far.  “I liked your postcard so much.” (The facilis descensus to an averni of literature began with a swoop down here.) “Mother is wel.  Fother is wel.  The baby is wel.  The dog has sevven kitens.” (Robina robbed Peter to pay Paul habitually in her spelling.) “Fother sais they lukk like choklit eclares.  I miss you, dere Aunt Evelyn, because I lov you sew.  I hope Santa Claus wil bring me a doll.  I want a very bigg bride doll with a vale and flours an a trunk of close, and all her under-close to buton and unboton and to have pink ribons run into.  I don’t want anythig sode on.  Come home, Aunt Evelyn, becaus I miss you.  But if the poor wundead soljers ned you then don’t come.  But as soone as you can come to yure loving own girl—­ROBINA.”

The dear angel!  Every affectionate, labored word was from the warm little heart; Evelyn Bruce knew that.  She sat, smiling, holding the paper against her, seeing a vision of the faraway, beloved child who wrote it.  She saw the dancing, happy brown eyes and the shining, cropped head of pale golden brown, and the straight, strong little figure; she heard the merry, ready giggle and the soft, slow tones that were always full of love to her.  Robina, her sister’s child, her own god-daughter had been her close friend from babyhood, and between them there was a bond of understanding which made nothing of the difference in years.  Darling little Robina!  Such a good, unspoiled little girl, for all of the luxury and devotion that surrounded her!

But—­there was a difficulty just there.  Robina was unspoiled indeed, yet, as the children of the very rich, she was, even at eight, sophisticated in a baby way.  She had been given too many grand dolls not to know just the sort she wanted.  She did not know that what she wanted cost money, but she knew the points desired—­and they did cost money.  Aunt Evelyn had not much money.

“This one extravagant thing I will do,” said Evelyn Bruce, “and I’ll give up my trip to England next week, and I’ll do it in style.  Robina won’t want dolls much longer and this time she’s got to have her heart’s desire.”

Which was doubtless foolish, yet when one is separated by an ocean and a war from one’s own, it is perhaps easier to be foolish for a child’s face and a child’s voice, and love sent across the sea.  So Evelyn Bruce wrote a letter to her cousin in England saying that she could not come to her till after Christmas.  Then she went out into Paris and ordered the doll, and reveled in the ordering, for a very gorgeous person indeed it was, and worthy to journey from Paris to a little American.  It was to be ready in just two weeks, and Miss Bruce was to come in and look over the fine lady and her equipment as often as desired, before she started on her ocean voyage.