“I did n’t say quite,” returned Elsie, in a lover voice, “I said almost.  ’Course, nobody tells ’em so good as Polly—­she’s ’special!”

“But David is a dandy fine feller!” asserted Cornelius.  “He can play ball, reg’lar baseball!  A college feller on a team showed him how!”

“Wisht I could play ball,” sighed Leonora Hewitt, a bit dejectedly.

“Girls don’t play baseball!” laughed Cornelius.

“They do some kinds anyway—­I used to!” And again Leonora sighed.  It is hard to be shut out from things when you are only ten.

“I would n’t care, if I were you,” comforted Elsie, in a way that showed her to be an unconscious pupil of her adored Polly.  She threw an arm around the little girl who the Doctor feared would never walk again on two strong feet.  “There’s lots of things better than playing ball.”

“What?” demanded Cornelius, with more curiosity than thoughtfulness.

Elsie flashed him a look that meant, “How can you?” for Cornelius had been able to throw aside his own helps to walking.  Then she answered triumphantly, “Playing with dolls—­for one thing!”

“Dolls!” echoed Cornelius, laughing “Ho, ho!  Dolls!”

“Well, I don’t care, they are!  Ain’t they, Miss Lucy?”

“What is it, Elsie?” smiled the nurse across from her desk.  “I was n’t noticing.”

“Dolls—­ain’t dolls more fun that playing ball?”

“That depends,” answered Miss Lucy.  “Cornelius or Moses would no doubt enjoy a game of ball better than the prettiest doll that ever was made; but you and Leonora and Corinne, for instance, would be unusual little girls if you did n’t like dolls best.”

Elsie and Cornelius faced each other with good-natured laughter.

“But I hain’t got any doll,” lamented Leonora.

“Nary a ball!” declared Cornelius, striking his reast dramatically.  “So we’re even!”

“My doll’s ’most worn out,” mourned Elsie.  “Guess it will be quite by the time I get home, with Rosie and Esther bangin’ it round.”

“I want my dolly!  I want my dolly!” piped up little Isabel.  “Where’s my dolly?”

“Oh!  May I get her the doll, Miss Lucy?” cried Elsie, running over to the chest of drawers where the ward’s few playthings were kept.

Isabel trotted after, her face shining with expectation.

Barely waiting for the desired permission, Elsie dived down into the lower drawer, and, after a brief search among torn picture-books and odds and ends of broken toy, brought forth a little battered rubber doll, which had lost most of its coloring and all of its cry.  But Baby Isabel hugged it to her heart, and at once dropped to the floor, crooning over her new treasure.

While the ward was thus discussing dolls, Mrs. Jocelyn and Polly, downstairs, in the little lady’s room, were conversing on the same subject.

It was Polly’s first visit since the night she had sung to Burton Leonard, and they had talked of that any many other things.