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.
However, she was in no hurry to take advantage of her aunt's permission.

She sat quietly in the warm and pleasant arbor, holding her doll-baby, with the afternoon sun sifting through the young leaves, and making over them a shifting dapple like golden water, and felt no inclination to stir.