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.
"I always returned home laden with gifts, and I was scarcely settled there, when new requests came that I would repeat the visit.

When we were a little older we had lessons together, both from a regular teacher and from my father, and when we began to read together, the heroes and heroines of our books were as real to us as our dolls had been, and we lived over their lives and histories again and again.

What life and energy Lili had; what freshness and vivacity; my charming Lili, with her flowing brown curls and her laughing eyes! "So the years passed, and no thought of coming sorrow and separation crossed our young lives, until one day, when we were nearly twelve years old, my father told me--I remember the very spot in the garden where we were standing at that moment--that Mr.Blank, Lili's father, was about to give up his factory and return to Germany.

As I understood, Mr.Blank had been deceived from the very beginning; the business was not in the prosperous condition that had been represented to him, and now he was obliged to give it up, to his great loss.