“Was not I named for her, mamma?” she asked, and her mother assented.  “You all know the long manufactory under the hill,” continued Mrs. Birkenfeld, “with the large house surrounded by a beautiful garden.  Lili, my friend, lived there, and I remember very well the first time I ever saw her.

“I was about six years old, and I was playing one day in the parsonage garden with my simple dolls, which I set up on flat stones, that I always collected for seats for my children, whenever and wherever I found them.  For I had no such outfit for my dolls as you children have now, no sofas and chairs and other furniture.  You all know that your grandfather was the pastor in Tannenburg, and we led a very simple life at the parsonage.  My playmates, two of the neighbors’ children, were standing as usual by me and staring at me while I played, without saying one word.  They never seemed to take the interest in my plays that I thought they deserved.  They stood and looked at me with their big eyes, no matter what I did, and it was very annoying to me.

“Well, this evening, I was sitting there, on the ground, with my dolls all placed in a circle, when a lady came into the garden and asked to see my father.  Before I could reply, a child whom she was leading by the hand, came running to my side, squatted down by me, and began to examine everything.  I had so arranged my stones that each flat one had another stuck into the ground edgewise behind it, so that the doll could be placed leaning back against it as if it were a chair.  The child was delighted with this arrangement, and joined in my play at once with the liveliest interest, while on my side I was so charmed with the little stranger’s looks and ways, with her pretty floating curls and her sweet voice that I forgot everything else, and looked on bewitched, while she made the dolls say and do all sorts of things that I had never thought of before.  I was quite startled when the lady again asked where she could find my father.

“From that day forth Lili and I were inseparable friends, and a rich and happy life was opened to me in her lovely home, such as I had never known nor thought of.  I shall never forget the delightful, untroubled days which I spent in that beautiful house.  I was almost as much loved and petted as if I had been Lili’s own sister.  Her parents had come from North Germany.  Her father had been induced to buy the factory by the advice of an acquaintance, and they expected to remain permanently in our neighborhood.  Lili was an only child, and having been hitherto without companionship of her own age, she clung to me very closely, and I returned her affection with equal fervor.

“What good, kind people her parents were!  They asked as a great favor that I might make long visits at their house, and my parents allowed me to pass weeks at a time with my newly found friends.  Those visits seemed to me like prolonged festivals.  Such lovely toys and playthings as Lili had!  I had never even dreamed of anything like them.  I shall never forget the innumerable figures cut from fashion plates which we used for paper dolls!  We each had a large family of them, with all their kindred and relatives, each one fitted with a name, a character and a story of its own.  We almost, nay quite, lived in their imaginary lives, and we shared their joys and sorrows as if they had been real.