第3章 Sara(3)

but Captain Crewe was a rash,innocent young man and wanted his little girl to have everything she admired and everything he admired himself,so between them they collected a wardrobe much too grand for a child of seven.There were velvet dresses trimmed with costly furs,and lace dresses,and embroidered ones,and hats with great,soft ostrich feathers,and ermine coats and muffs,and boxes of tiny gloves and handkerchiefs and silk stockings in such abundant supplies that the polite young women behind the counters whispered to each other that the odd little girl with the big,solemn eyes must be at least some foreign princess--perhaps the little daughter of an Indian rajah.

And at last they found Emily,but they went to a number of toy shops and looked at a great many dolls before they discovered her.

"I want her to look as if she wasn't a doll really,"Sara said.

"I want her to look as if she LISTENS when I talk to her.

The trouble with dolls,papa"--and she put her head on one side and reflected as she said it--"the trouble with dolls is that they never seem to HEAR>."So they looked at big ones and little ones--at dolls with black eyes and dolls with blue--at dolls with brown curls and dolls with golden braids,dolls dressed and dolls undressed.

"You see,"Sara said when they were examining one who had no clothes.

"If,when I find her,she has no frocks,we can take her to a dressmaker and have her things made to fit.They will fit better if they are tried on."

After a number of disappointments they decided to walk and look in at the shop windows and let the cab follow them.They had passed two or three places without even going in,when,as they were approaching a shop which was really not a very large one,Sara suddenly started and clutched her father's arm.

"Oh,papa!"she cried."There is Emily!"

A flush had risen to her face and there was an expression in her green-gray eyes as if she had just recognized someone she was intimate with and fond of.

"She is actually waiting there for us!"she said."Let us go in to her."

"Dear me,"said Captain Crewe,"I feel as if we ought to have someone to introduce us."

"You must introduce me and I will introduce you,"said Sara.

"But I knew her the minute I saw her--so perhaps she knew me,too."

Perhaps she had known her.She had certainly a very intelligent expression in her eyes when Sara took her in her arms.

She was a large doll,but not too large to carry about easily;

she had naturally curling golden-brown hair,which hung like a mantle about her,and her eyes were a deep,clear,gray-blue,with soft,thick eyelashes which were real eyelashes and not mere painted lines.

"Of course,"said Sara,looking into her face as she held her on her knee,"of course papa,this is Emily."

So Emily was bought and actually taken to a children's outfitter's shop and measured for a wardrobe as grand as Sara's own.

She had lace frocks,too,and velvet and muslin ones,and hats and coats and beautiful lace-trimmed underclothes,and gloves and handkerchiefs and furs.

"I should like her always to look as if she was a child with a good mother,"said Sara."I'm her mother,though I am going to make a companion of her."