It was nearly four years ago that I first noticed, in one of the quiet side-streets in the West Central district of London, a sign over a door on which I read:—

DOLLS’ HOSPITAL.

Operations from 9 A.M., to 4 P.M.

Whenever I passed through the street—and that was often, for it was a short cut to Mudie’s,—the largest circulating library in the world,—I used to notice this quaint sign, and wonder, laughingly, who was the superintending physician to this place of healing for the numerous race of dolls.

I often thought I would go in and see the establishment; but one is always busy in London, so, very likely, I should never have entered its door but for a casualty at my own fireside.

When I went downstairs one morning, I heard a sound of weeping, as bitter as that of Rachel of old mourning for her children. The mourner in this case was Mistress Brown-Eyes, as I was wont to call my friend’s little girl.

She was a pretty child, this little Milicent; but you forgot to think about the rest of her face when you saw her wonderful eyes—soft and clear, yet bright, and of the warmest, deepest, yet softest brown. She had made her home in my heart, and so her grief, whatever it was, appealed at once to my sympathies.

“My darling,” I said, as I tried to draw away the little hands from before the sorrowful face, “what can be the matter?”

“Bella is dead!” and the sobs recommenced with fresh violence.

Bella was the best-beloved of a somewhat large family of dolls,—a pretty Parian creature, with blue eyes and fair hair. I had myself lately assisted in making a trunk of clothes for Bella; and I grudged sorely all my wasted labor, if she had come to an untimely end.

I looked at the dear remains, stretched out sadly upon a chair. Bella was evidently very dead indeed. Her pretty neck was broken, her fair, foolish head lay quite severed from her silken-clad body. Suddenly there flashed into my mind the thought of the dolls’ hospital. I spoke cheerfully.

“Brown-Eyes,” I said, “I think that Bella may recover. I am pretty sure that her collar-bone is broken; but I have heard of people who got well after breaking their collar-bones.”

The child looked up, her eyes shining through tears, and said, with that air of grave, old-fashioned propriety which was one of the most amusing things about her,—

“It is a very serious accident. Do you think Bella could recover?”

“I hope she may; and I shall at once take her to the hospital.”

“The hospital!” cried Mistress Brown-Eyes; “but that is where Mary Ann went when she had a fever. She was gone six weeks. Will my Bella be gone six weeks?”

“I think not so long as one week, if she can be cured at all.”

In five minutes more I was in the street, with Bella in a basket on my arm. Her little mother had covered her carefully from the cold, though it was already May; and I felt as if I were in a position of grave responsibility as I hurried to the dolls’ hospital.

A bell rang when I opened the door, and the oddest little person stood before me. At first I thought it was a child masquerading in long clothes; for she was not more than half the height of an ordinary woman.

But, looking more closely, I saw the maturity of her face, and realized that I stood in the presence of a grown-up dwarf, who might really have been taken for Dickens’s Miss Mowcher, herself.

She was dressed in a long, straight gown of rusty-looking black alpaca, and her rusty-looking black hair was drawn straightly back from as plain a face as one often sees. It was a kind, honest face, however, and I liked the voice in which she asked how she could serve me. I explained my errand.

“Please to let me see the patient.”

She spoke with as much gravity as if she had been the superintending physician of the largest hospital in London. I unveiled poor Bella, and the dwarf lifted her from the basket with grave tenderness.

“Poor little beauty!” she said. “Yes’m, I think I can cure her.”

“Will the operation take long?” I asked, humoring her fancy.

“I should prefer that the patient should not be moved, ma’am, before to-morrow.”

“Very well; then I will leave her.”

Just at that moment I heard a voice call, “Sally! Sally!”

It was a well-trained, ladylike voice, but somewhat imperious.

“Yes, Lady Jane, I’ll be there in a moment,” answered the dwarf, whom I now knew to be Sally. Then a door opened, and the most beautiful creature I ever saw stood in it, looking in.

The hospital was a bare enough place. There was a great table covered with dolls,—dolls with broken legs, dolls with punched heads, dolls with one arm gone, hairless dolls, broken-backed dolls, dolls of every kind, awaiting the ministrations of Sally; and dozens of other dolls were there, too, whom those skilful fingers had already cured of their wounds.

There was a shelf, on which was ranged the pharmacy of this hospital,—white cement, boxes of saw-dust, collections of legs and arms, wigs, every thing, in short, that an afflicted doll could possibly require. Then there were two or three wooden stools, and these completed the furniture of the apartment.

Standing in the doorway, Lady Jane looked as if she were a larger doll than the rest,—a doll with a soul. She seemed a lady’s child, every pretty inch of her. I should think she was about twelve years old. She wore a blue dress, and a blue ribbon in the bright, fair hair that hung all about her soft, pink-and-white face, out of which looked two great, serious, inquiring blue eyes.

“I will be through soon, Lady Jane,” Sally said quietly; and the girl turned away, but not before I had taken in a complete picture of her loveliness, and had noticed also a somewhat singular ornament she wore, attached to a slender golden chain. It was so strange a vision to see in this humble little shop that my curiosity got the better of me, and, after the door had closed on Lady Jane, I asked, “Does she live here?”

“Yes’m,” answered Sally proudly. “In a way, she is my child.”

I hesitated to inquire further; but I think my eyes must have asked some questions in spite of myself; for Sally said, after a moment,—

“You seem interested, ma’am, and I don’t mind telling you about her. I saw Lady Jane first some eight years ago. A man had her who used to go round with a hand-organ. She was such a pretty little creature that everybody gave her money, and she was a great profit to Jacopo, for that was his name.

“It used to make my heart ache to see the little beauty trudging round all day on her patient feet. When Jacopo spoke to her, I’ve seen her turn pale; and she never used to smile except when she was holding out her bit of a hat to people for money. She had to smile then; it was part of the business.

“I was sixteen, and I was all alone in the world. I had a room to myself, and I worked days in a toy-shop. I used to dress the dolls, and I got very clever at mending them; but I hadn’t thought of the hospital, then.

“I lived in the same street with Jacopo, and I grew very fond of the little lady, as the people in the street used to call Jane. Sometimes I coaxed Jacopo to let her stay with me at night; but after three or four times, he would not let her come again. I suppose he thought she would get too fond of me.

“Things went on that way for two years; then one night, in the middle of the night, a boy came for me, and said Jacopo was dying and wanted me to come. I knew it was something about Jane, and I hurried on my clothes and went.

“The child was asleep in one corner. She had been tramping all that day, as usual, and she was too tired out for the noise in the room to wake her. Jacopo looked very ill, and he could hardly summon strength to speak to me.

“‘The end has come sudden, Sally,’ he said, ‘the end to a bad life. But I ain’t bad enough to want harm to happen to the little one when I am gone. There will be plenty of folks after her, for she’s a profitable little one to have; but if you want her, I’ll give her to you. You may take her away to-night, if you will.’

“‘Indeed I will,’ I cried, ‘and thank you. While I can work, she shall never want.’

“Jacopo had been fumbling under his pillow as he spoke; and when I said I would take the child he handed me a curious locket. Maybe you noticed it at her neck when she stood in the door?

“He said, as nearly as I could understand, for it was getting hard work for him to speak, that he had stolen the child, but he had always kept this thing, which she had on her neck when he took her, and perhaps it would help, some day, to find her people.

“So I took her home. The next morning I heard that Jacopo was dead, and the Lady Jane has been mine ever since.”

“Have you always called her Lady Jane?” I asked.

“Yes’m. There is a coronet on that locket she wears; and I know she must be some great person’s daughter, she is so beautiful, and seems so much like a real lady.”

“And so you’ve struggled on and worked for her, and taken care of her for six years, now?”

“Yes’m, and I’ve thanked God every day that I’ve had her to take care of. You see, ma’am, I’m not like other people; and it was a good fortune I couldn’t look for to have a beautiful child like that given into my arms, as you might say. It was all the difference between being alone and with no one to care for, and having a home and an interest in life like other women.

“I gave up working in the shop when I took her, for I didn’t like to leave her alone. I was a good workwoman, and they let me take work home for awhile; then I opened the hospital, and I’ve done very well. Lady Jane has been to school, and I don’t think if her true parents met her, they would be ashamed of her.”

“Do you ever think,” I said, “that they may meet her some time, and then you would lose her for ever?”

“Yes, indeed, I think about that, ma’am; and I make her keep the locket in sight all the time, in hopes it might lead to something.”

“In hopes!” I said, surprised. “You don’t want to part with her, do you?”

I was sorry, instantly, that I had asked the question, for her poor face flushed, and the tears gathered in her eyes.

“O ma’am,” she said, “if I stopped to think about myself, I suppose I should rather die than lose her; but I don’t think of any thing but her. And how could I want her, a lady born, and beautiful as any princess, to live always in a little room back of a dolls’ hospital? Would it be right for me to want it?

“No; I think God gave her to make a few of my years bright; and when the time comes, she will go away to live her own life, and I shall live out mine, remembering that she was here, once; and harking back till I can hear the sound of her voice again; or looking till I see her bright head shine in the corner where she sits now.”

Just then the bell rang, and other customers came into the hospital, and I went away, promising to return for Bella on the morrow.

I walked through the streets with a sense that I had been talking with some one nobler than the rest of the world. Another than poor Sally might have adopted Lady Jane, perhaps, tended her, loved her; but who else would have been noble enough to love her, and yet be ready to lose her for ever and live on in darkness quite satisfied if but the little queen might come to her own again?

I comforted Mistress Brown-Eyes with a promise of her “child’s” recovery, and I went to a kettle-drum or two in the afternoon, and dined out at night; but all the time, amidst whatever buzz of talk, I was comparing the most generous persons I had ever known with the poor dwarfed surgeon of the dolls’ hospital, and finding them all wanting.

I went for Bella about four the next afternoon. I wanted to get to the hospital late enough to see something of the little surgeon and her beautiful ward. I purchased a bunch of roses on the way, for I meant to please Sally by giving them to Lady Jane.

I opened the door, and again, at the ringing of the bell, the quaint little figure of the dwarf surgeon started up like Jack-in-the-box.

“Is the patient recovered?” I asked.

“The patient is quite well;” and the surgeon took down pretty Bella, and proudly exhibited her. The white cement had done its work so perfectly that the slender neck showed no signs of ever having been broken.

I paid the surgeon her modest fee, and then I said, “Here are some roses I brought for Lady Jane.”

Sally’s plain face beamed with pleasure. “It’s time to stop receiving patients for to-day,” she said. “Won’t you walk into the sitting-room and give the roses to Lady Jane, yourself?”

I was well pleased to accept the invitation. The sitting-room was as cosy as the hospital itself was barren of attraction. I really wondered at the taste with which it was arranged. The hangings were blue, and two or three low chairs were covered with the same color; and there were pretty trifles here and there which made it seem like a lady’s room.

My roses were received with a cry of delight; and, while Lady Jane put them in a delicate glass, Sally made me sit down in the most comfortable chair, and then she asked her ward to sing to me.

The girl had a wonderful voice, soft and clear and full.

When she had done singing, Sally said, “I have thought sometimes that, if no better fortune comes, Lady Jane can sing herself into good luck.”

“I count on something better than that,” the little lady cried carelessly. “When I ‘come to my own,’ like the princesses in all the fairy tales, I’ll send you my picture, Sally, and it will make you less trouble than I do. It won’t wear out its gowns, nor want all the strawberries for supper.”

Sally didn’t answer; but two great tears gathered in her eyes, and rolled down her cheeks.

Lady Jane laughed—not unkindly, only childishly—and said, “Never mind. Don’t cry yet. You’ll have time enough for that when it all comes to pass. And you know you want it to happen; you always say so.”

“Yes, yes, dear, I want it to happen,” Sally said hastily; “I couldn’t want to shut you up here for ever, like a flower growing in a dungeon.”

“A pretty, blue-hung dungeon, with nice soft chairs,” Lady Jane said pleasantly; and then I got up to go.

Had this beautiful girl any real heart behind her beauty? I wondered. If the time ever came when Sally must give her up to some brighter fate, would it cost the little lady herself one pang? Could she be wholly insensible to all the devotion that had been lavished on her for all these years? I could not tell; but she seemed to me too light a thing for deep loving.

I carried Bella home to Mistress Brown-Eyes, who received her with great joy, and with a certain tender respect, such as we give to those who have passed through perils. I stayed in London till “the season” was over,—that is to say, till the end of July; and then, with the last rose of summer in my buttonhole, I went over to the fair sea coast of France.

It was not until the next May that I found myself in London again; and going to renew my subscription at Mudie’s, passed the dolls’ hospital. I looked up at the quaint sign, and the fancy seized me to go in.

I opened the door, and promptly as ever, the dwarf surgeon of the dolls stood before me. It was nearly four o’clock, and the hospital was empty of customers. Nothing in it was changed except the face of the surgeon. Out of that always plain face a certain cheerful light had faded. It looked now like a face accustomed to tears. I said,—

“Do you remember me, Dr. Sally?”

A sort of frozen smile came to the poor trembling lips.

“Oh, yes’m. You’re the lady that brought the rose-buds to Lady Jane.”

“And is she well?” I asked.

“I think so, ma’am. Heaven knows I hope so; but the old days when I knew are over. Won’t you come into the sitting-room, please?”

I wanted nothing better for myself, and I felt that it might ease her sad heart to break its silence; so I followed her into the familiar room. It, at least, was unchanged. The blue hangings were there, and the low easy-chairs, and the pretty trifles; and yet, somehow, the room seemed cold, for the beauty which had gladdened it last year had gone for ever.

“Will you tell me what happened?” I asked; and I know the real sympathy I felt must have sounded in my voice.

“It wasn’t long after you were here,” she said, “a lady was driving by, and she saw my sign. She sent her footman to the door to see if the place was really what that said; and the next day she came in herself and brought a whole load of broken toys. She said she wanted these things put in order to take into the country, for they were favorite playthings of her little girl’s.

“I turned then and looked at the child who had come in with her mother. I can never tell you how I felt. It was as though Lady Jane had gone back six years. Just what my darling was when she came to me, this little girl was now,—the very same blue eyes, and bright, fair hair, and the pretty, pink-and-white face.

“Just at that moment, Lady Jane came into the hospital, and when the lady saw her, she stood and gazed as if she had seen a ghost. I looked at the lady herself, and then I looked at Lady Jane, and then again at the little girl; and true as you live, ma’am, I knew it was Lady Jane’s mother and sister before ever a word was spoken. I felt my knees shaking under me, and I held fast to the counter to keep from falling. I couldn’t have spoken first, if my life had depended on it.

“The lady looked, for what seemed to me a long time; and then she walked up to my darling and touched the locket that she wore on her neck. At last she turned to me and asked, with a little sternness in her gentle voice, if I would tell her who this girl was, and how I came by her.

“So I told her the whole story, just as I had told it to you, and before I had finished, she was crying as if her heart would break. Down she went on her knees beside Lady Jane, and put her arms around her, and cried,—

“‘O my darling, my love, I thought you were dead! I am your mother—oh, believe me, my darling! Love me a little, a little,—after all these years!’

“And just as properly as if she had gone through it all in her mind a hundred times beforehand, Lady Jane answered,—

“‘I always expected you, mamma.’

“Somehow, the lady looked astonished. She grew quieter, and stood up, holding Lady Jane’s hand.

“‘You expected me?’ she said, inquiringly.

“‘Yes, you know I knew I had been stolen; and I used to think and think, and fancy how my true mother would look, and what my right home would be; and I always felt sure in my heart that you would come some day. I didn’t know when or how it would be; but I expected you.’

“‘And when will you be ready to go with me?’ asked the mother.

“‘When you please, mamma.’

“The lady hesitated, and turned to me. ‘I owe you so much,’ she said, ‘so much that I can never hope to pay it; and I do not like to grieve you. But her father and I have been without Jane so long, could you spare her to me at once?’

“‘That must be as you and she say, ma’am,’ I answered, trying as hard as I could to speak quietly. ‘I never have wanted any thing but that she should be well off and happy so far, and won’t begin to stand in her light now.’

“Then the lady turned to the little girl who had come in with her. ‘Ethel,’ she said, ‘this is your sister. She has been lost to us eight years, but we will keep her always, now.’ And then, with more thanks to me, she started to go away,—the stately, beautiful lady, with her beautiful girls, one on each side of her.

“They got to the door, and suddenly my darling turned,—O ma’am, it’s the best thing in my whole life to remember that! Of her own accord she turned and came back to me, and said she,—

“‘Don’t think, Sally, that I’m not sorry to say good-by. Of course I can’t be sorry to find my own mamma and my right home, but I’m sorry to leave you.’

“And then she put her arms round my neck and kissed me just as she had done when I took her home that night from Jacopo’s, six years before; and then she went away, and the sunshine, it seemed to me, went out of the door with her, and has never come back since.”

The poor little surgeon of the dolls stopped speaking, and cried very quietly, as those cry who are not used to have their tears wiped away, or their sorrows comforted.

I wanted to say that Lady Jane seemed to me a heartless little piece, who cared for nothing in the world but herself, and wasn’t worth grieving for; but I felt there would be no comfort for her in thinking that there had never been any thing worth having in her life. Far better let her go on believing that for six years she had sheltered an angel at her fireside.

At last, when I saw her tears were ceasing to flow, I said, “And when did you see her again?”

“Oh, I have never seen her since that day. I think she pitied me too much to come back and give me the sorrow of parting with her over again. No, I have never seen her, but her mother sent me five hundred pounds.”

“And so she ought,” I said impulsively. “It was little enough for all you had done.”

Surgeon Sally looked at me with wonder, not unmixed with reproach, in her eyes.

“Do you think I wanted that?” she asked. “I had had my pay for all I did, ten times over, in just having her here to look at and to love. No; I sent the money back, and I think it must be that my darling understood; for, two months afterwards, I received the only gift I would have cared to have,—her portrait. Will you please to look round, ma’am? It hangs behind you.”

I looked round, and there she was, even lovelier than when I had seen her first,—a bright, smiling creature, silken-clad, patrician to the finger-tips. But it seemed to me that no heart of love looked out of the fair, careless face. I thought I would rather be Surgeon Sally, and know the sweetness of loving another better than myself.

“She is very beautiful,” I said, as I turned away.

“Yes; and sometimes I almost think I feel her lips, her bonny bright lips, touch my face, as they did that last day, and hear her say, ‘Don’t think, Sally, that I’m not sorry.’ Oh, my lot isn’t hard, ma’am. I might have lived my life through and never have known what it was to have something all my own to love. God was good.

“And after all, ma’am,” she added cheerfully, “there’s nothing happier in the world than to give all the pleasure you can to somebody.”

And I went away, feeling that the dwarf surgeon of the dolls’ hospital had learned the true secret of life.