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CHILDREN IN FICTION
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care. I have a suspicion that her white frocks don't stay white very long, and that her slim black legs are better distinguished for activity than for grace. She is anything but heroic, and runs fleetly away from danger, leaving both her cousin and her donkey to their fate; but she has a loving little heart, nevertheless, and when her terrier dies, this heart is as nearly broken as a healthy little girl's can be.


"'He is dead, Uncle Charles. He was quite well, and eating Albert biscuits with the dolls this morning, and now'—the rest was too dreadful, and Molly burst into a flood of tears, and burrowed with her head against the faithful waistcoat of Uncle Charles—of Uncle Charles, the friend, the consoler of all the ills that Molly had so far been heir to.

"'Vic had a very happy life, Molly,' said Charles, pressing the little brown head against his cheek, and vaguely wondering what it would be like to have any one to turn to in time of trouble.

"'I always kept trouble from him except that time I shut him in the door,' gasped Molly. 'I never took him out in a string, and he only wore his collar—that collar you gave him that made him scratch so—on Sundays.'

"'And he was not ill a long time? He did not suffer any pain?'

"'No, Uncle Charles, not much. But, though he did