Could he be made to understand the immense difference between Helena and other toys?  Could any words explain to him about the soul that had grown out of Mollie’s love into the cloth and sawdust body?  Mollie looked up to catch a sympathetic expression that should help her to tell him; but she did not find it.

“You don’t understand,” she said desperately.

“No?” said he.

“Mr. John,” said Mollie, not looking him in the eye, “when you have a doll as long as I have had Helena, it is only natural that she should seem to you like a live person.  If I didn’t play with her at all, she’d seem real to me, and I shouldn’t like to have her go away any more than I would mother.”

“Which tells the secret that you have some sort of human fondness for the lifeless bundle of rags,” said Mr. John, “and proves what I feared, that you are a very weak-minded little girl, Mollie.”

“You wont believe in me at all,” said Mollie.

“You wont think I am doing my best, and that I ever succeed.  You are not like you used to be.”

“That naturally follows your being different,” said Mr. John.  “Of course, we can’t have the same feelings toward each other now as when you were contented to be a little girl and to let me treat you as one.  I’m sorry you don’t find me as agreeable as before, Mollie; but you must acknowledge that I am acting as a friend in doing all that I can to help you in your dear project.”

“It isn’t dear!” burst forth Mollie, indignantly.  “I hate it!—­but I’ll never give it up!”

“Of course not,” Mr. John said.  “Then I presume you are all ready to part with Helena.”

“I’ll go and get her,” said Mollie.

No one saw the parting in the play-room.  It was quickly over, and she was back by the fence.

“Give her to Bessie,” said Mollie, putting Helena and her wardrobe into Mr. John’s arms.  Bessie was one of his many nieces.

“To Bessie!” said he.  “Where you can feel that she is away on a visit; where you know that she will be petted and cared for; where you can see her occasionally.  If you are sincere in this matter, Mollie, send her off where you can no longer care to think of her.  Our ash-man would be very glad to carry her home to his little girls.”

Mollie’s hands made a wild dive toward Helena as a vision of the little grimy man who crept into their areas for ashes rose before her.

“Decide now,” said Mr. John.  “Take your doll and be Mollie Kelly again, or be a boy and give her to the ash-man’s children without a pang.”

Mollie hung her head.  There was color coming and going in her cheeks, her fingers trembled,—­how they longed to snatch Helena!—­and her mind was full of indecision.  Mr. John watched her closely, and he thought he saw the tide turning in favor of her girlhood.  He held the doll nearer that it might tempt her fingers; but, on the instant, she turned and ran away.  He tucked Helena under his coat and carried her upstairs and locked her in a drawer, there to abide until Mollie should want her again.