Lady Daisy, and Other Stories
long, and they never take the trouble to settle the cushions properly, these railway people. Lazy set!"

By which remark he did the hard-working railway people a great injustice,[Pg 17] so I am glad there was no one in the carriage to hear.

[Pg 17]

He threw the doll roughly down on the opposite side, and composed himself once more to rest. When people are angry they are very often unjust. We know—you and I—that it was not the guard's fault nor the porter's fault that poor Lady Daisy disturbed the rest of this grumbling old gentleman. We know that she had only been left in that carriage ten minutes by herself. However, at the next station the guard was called to the door and shown the poor battered doll, and angrily asked why the cushions were not made smooth before the train started on its journey?

The guard said he was sorry for any discomfort the gentleman might have had, but explained that he remembered a party of children had only just got out at the last station, so he was sure they must have left it there. In the meantime he would take "Miss Doll,"[Pg 18] as he called her, into his own van; and he lifted her up, and picked up the broken arm and all the yellow hair and rolled them into a big bundle, and went off to his part of the train.

[Pg 18]

"It'll do for my little Polly," thought the guard to himself.

All this while what was Flora doing? Hard-hearted little girl, she was thinking how hungry she was as they rolled along the streets in a cab to their lodgings. When the family were all seated at tea, and Flora was busy with a plateful of bread and jam, Nurse suddenly came into the room looking rather sad, and she whispered something to Flora's mother. Flora heard some of the words. They were, "Break it to her, please, ma'am; I'm afraid."

All at once, like a flash, Flora remembered Lady Daisy. She darted up from her chair, crying out, "Oh, Nurse, where is my doll? I've left her in the train! Oh, Mother, please send[Pg 19] to the station and ask them for her! Oh, Mother, how could Nurse forget her? Nurse, Nurse, are you sure you haven't got her? I heard you say you were afraid! I know you've left her behind!" And thus Flora ran on—now accusing Nurse, now mourning the loss of her doll, now asking her mother to send for her—till her mother drew her calmly to herself, and said, "Flora, dear, do not blame Nurse for forgetting your doll when she had a hundred other things to 
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