She turned her tear-wet face toward me, and asked, dully, “How much was left?” “Oh,” I replied, with an airy assumption of knowledge worthy of my elders, “bits of skin, and little bones like teeth, you know, and broken ‘spenders.’” “But,” objected Marie, “Dinah’s teef hadn’t _growed_ yet, and she didn’t _wear_ spenders,” and her sobs broke forth anew. I reassured her by telling her there was quite a large piece of Dinah’s flannel petticoat left, and over half of her face (including all of her indestructible smile), and perhaps we might find some more bits if we looked, and we could put them all in a little, white sheet, in a true box (a wooden box), and truly bury her just like any other person. The poor, little vixen sat up and put her hair from her eyes and listened--she began to be interested--then the tears slipping down her wan cheeks, she stole her arm about my neck and whispered: “Cawie, where has the _inside_ Dinah gone?--the--the now-I-lay-me-down-to-sleep Dinah?” I was silent; and I could feel the trembling of her body increase as she waited for an answer. Then she wailed: “Oh, Cawie! tell me! tell me!” Poor baby! who wanted her doll to be immortal as herself! I dared not say she was in Heaven, so without an idea of what Paradise meant, I calmly told her that “Dinah was in dolls’ Paradise”--and that was the only time I ever knew her to be called a doll. “What’s that?” asked Marie, eagerly. “Why,” I answered, “it’s a lovely, clean, sweet place, where dead dolls wait till their owners get dead too, and call for them on their way to Heaven.” May I be forgiven--but I certainly had a fine, able-bodied imagination in my youth. “Oh,” cried Marie, and she put her little lips to mine and kissed me sweetly, “Oh, Cawie! I’se glad, and I do hope she won’t get out and get lost--she gets lost very easy, you know--before I get dead and go for her,” and she took my hand and we came forth from the store-closet, and at sunset, in a deal-box with brass hinges and lock (from the young uncle), in a white, silk handkerchief (from Papa), Dinah’s scrappy remains were buried at the foot of the orange tree--buried with flowers from every one, and passionate tears from Marie, and many promises, as she kissed the box, not to forget to stop at Paradise for her. She had not allowed any “grown-ups” to do anything except look on; she and I did all. The mother, wishing to please her, said: “Should we move from here, dear one, we will take up Dinah and keep her with us.” But Marie, with frowning brows, rejected this offer. “No!” she said, “if her now-I-lay-me part got lost out of Paradise, she could come right here and find her old self in her home. If the box was moved, she would be lost everywhere!” And she went back alone, and I looked and saw her pat the grave gently, and heard her say: “My peshous Dinah!” Life’s Aftermath Life’s Aftermath “_The grave of all things hath its violet._”