LETTER LIV.

Beloved:  We have been having a great day of tidyings out, rummaging through years and years of accumulations—­things quite useless but which I have not liked to throw away.  My soul has been getting such dusty answers to all sorts of doubtful inquiries as to where on earth this, that, and the other lay hidden.  And there were other things, the memory of which had lain quite dead or slept, till under the light of day they sprouted hack into life like corn from the grave of an Egyptian mummy.

Very deep in one box I found a stealthy little collection of secret playthings which it used to be my fond belief that nobody knew of but myself.  It may have been Anna’s graspingness, when four years of seniority gave her double my age, or Arthur’s genial instinct for destructiveness, which drove me into such deep concealment of my dearest idols.  But, whether for those or more mystic reasons, I know I had dolls which I nursed only in the strictest privacy and lavished my firmest love upon.  It was because of them that I bore the reproach of being but a lukewarm mother of dolls and careless of their toilets; the truth being that my motherly passion expended itself in secret on certain outcasts of society whom others despised or had forgotten.  They, on their limp and dissolute bodies, wore all the finery I could find to pile on them:  and one shady transaction done on their behalf I remember now without pangs.  There was one creature of state whom an inconsiderate relative had presented to Anna and myself in equal shares.  Of course Anna’s became more and more lionlike.  I had very little love for the bone of contention myself, but the sense of injustice rankled in me.  So one day, at an unclothing, Anna discovered that certain undergarments were gone altogether away.  She sat aghast, questioned me, and, when I refused to disgorge, screamed down vengeance from the authorities.  I was morally certain I had taken no more than my just share, and resolution sat on my lips under all threats.  For a punishment the whole ownership of the big doll was made over to Anna:  I was no worse off, and was very contented with my obstinacy.  To-day I found the beautifully wrought bodice, which I had carried beyond reach of even the supreme court of appeal, clothing with ridiculous looseness a rag-doll whose head tottered on its stem like an over-ripe plum, and whose legs had no deportment at all:  and am sending it off in charitable surrender to Anna to be given, bag and rag, to whichever one of the children she likes to select.

Also I found:—­would you care to have a lock of hair taken from the head of a child then two years old, which, bright golden, does not match what I have on now in the least?  I can just remember her:  but she is much of a stranger to both of us.  Why I value it is that the name and date on the envelope inclosing it are in my mother’s handwriting:  and I suppose she loved very much the curly treasure she then put away.  Some of the other things, quite funny, I will show you the next time you come over.  How I wish that vanished mite had mixed some of her play-hours with yours:—­you only six miles away all the time:  had one but known!—­Now grown very old and loving, always your own.