"I guess the room was pretty warm, and that was what made her cheeks so red." But Ellen, after her mother left her, turned her little head towards the wall and wept softly, lest some one hear her, but none the less bitterly that she had no right conception of the cause of her grief.
There was over her childish soul the awful shadow of the labor and poverty of the world.

She knew naught of the substance behind the shadow, but the darkness terrified her all the more, and she cried and cried as if her heart would break.

Then she, with a sudden resolution, born she could not have told of what strange understanding and misunderstanding of what she had heard that evening, slipped out of bed, groped about until she found her cherished doll, sitting in her little chair in the corner.

She was accustomed to take the doll to bed with her, and had undressed her for that purpose early in the evening, but she had climbed into bed and left her sitting in the corner.
"Don't you want your dolly ?" her mother had asked.
"No, ma'am; I guess I don't want her to-night," Ellen had replied, with a little break in her voice.

Now, when she reached the doll, she gathered her up in her little arms, and groped her way with her into the closet.