“It is too bad for you to be shut up in a hospital all this beautiful summer,” lamented Mrs. Jocelyn.  “If I were only well, I’d carry you off home with me this very day, and we’d go driving out in the country, and have woodsy picnics, and all sorts of delightful things.”

“I went to ride yesterday with Dr. Dudley,” said Polly contentedly.

“Yes, that’s all right as far as it goes; but your pleasures are too serious ones for the most part.  You ought to be playing with dolls—­without a care beyond them.  By the way, I never have seen you with a doll yet.”

“No, I have n’t any,” replied Polly sadly.

“But you have them up in the ward, don’t you?”

“There’s a little old rubber doll that somebody left because it had n’t any squeak—­that’s all.”

“For pity’s sake!” exclaimed the little lady.  “The idea!—­not a single doll that can be called a doll!  I never heard anything like it!  What do yo play with?  Or don’t you play at all?”

“Oh, yes!” laughed Polly.  “We play games, and Dr. Dudley has given me two story-books, and there are some toy soldiers—­but they’re ’most all broken now.  Then there’s a big book with pictures pasted in it—­that’s nice!  There was Noah’s Ark; but a little boy threw Noah and nearly all the animals out of the window, and before we found them the rain spoiled some of them, and the rest were lost.”

“I declare, it’s pitiful!” sorrowed the little lady.

“Oh, we have a nice time!” smiled Polly.

“I believe you’d find something to enjoy on a desert, without a soul within fifty miles!” laughed Mrs. Jocelyn.

“Guess I’d be lonesome!” chuckled Polly.  “But I always thought the sand would be lovely to play in.”

“There, I told you so!  Oh, you’d have a good time!  But, child, have n’t you any doll of your own—­at home, I mean?”

“No, not now—­I did have”—­and pain crept into the sweet little face.  “Mamma gave me a pretty doll the last Christmas—­ oh, I loved it so!  But after I went to live with Aunt Jane I helped her ’most all the time I was out of school, and I did n’t have much time to play with Phebe—­she was named for mamma.  Phebe was mamma’s name.  So finally Aunt Jane said that Maude might just as well have my doll.  I felt as if I could n’t give her up, but I had to—­” Polly’s lip quivered, and she swallowed hard.

“Poor little girl!” Mrs. Jocelyn put out a hand and gently stroked the bright curls.  “How could anybody be so cruel!”

“I would n’t have cared—­much, if Maude had loved Phebe; but she did n’t.  She’d swing her round by one leg, and pull her hair when she got mad, or—­anything.  It seemed as if I could n’t stant it!”

“Bless you!  I don’t see how you could!” sympathized her listener.