As for Lucina, she had set up her doll primly in a corner of the arbor, and was knitting her stent.  It might have seemed difficult to understand what the child found to enjoy in this quiet entertainment, but in childhood all situations which appeal to the imagination give enjoyment, and most situations which break the routine of daily life do so appeal.  Then, too, Camilla’s quiet persistence in her own employment gave a delightful sense of equality and dignity to the child.  She would not have liked it half as well had her aunt stooped to entertain her and brought out toys and games for her amusement.  However, there was entertainment to come, to which she looked forward with gratification, as that placed her firmly on the footing of an honored guest.  The minister’s daughter or the doctor’s wife could not be treated better or with more courtesy.

Aunt Camilla wrote with pensive pauses of reflection, and Lucina knitted until her stent was finished.  Then she folded up the garter neatly, quilted in the needles as she had been taught, and placed it in her little bag.  Then she took up her doll protectingly and soothingly, and held her in her lap, with the great china head against her small bosom.  Lucina’s doll was very large, and finely attired in stiff book-muslin and pink ribbons.  She wore also pink morocco shoes on her feet, which stood out strangely at sharp right angles.  Lucina sometimes eyed her doll-baby’s feet uncomfortably.  “I guess she will outgrow it,” she told herself, with innocent maternal hypocrisy early developed.

When Lucina laid aside her work and began nursing her doll her aunt looked up from her writing.  “Are you enjoying yourself, dear?” she inquired.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Would you like to run about the garden?”

“No, thank you, ma’am; I will sit here and hold my doll.  It is time for her nap.  I will hold her till she goes to sleep.”

“Then you can run about a little,” suggested Miss Camilla, gravely, without a smile.  She respected Lucina’s doll, as she might have her baby, and the child’s heart leaped up with gratitude.  An older soul which needs not to make believe to re-enter childhood is a true comrade for a child.

“Yes, ma’am,” replied Lucina.  “I will lay her down on the bench here when she falls asleep.”

“You can cover her up with my shawl,” said Miss Camilla, gravely still, and naturally.  Indeed, to her a child with a doll was as much a part and parcel of the natural order of things as a mother with an infant.  Outside all of it herself, she comprehended and admitted it with the impartiality of an observer.  “Then you can run in the garden,” she added, “and pick a bouquet if you wish.  There is not much in bloom now but the heart’s-ease and the flowering almond and the daffodils, but you can make a bouquet of them to take home to your mother.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” said Lucina.