“Now, Victor, you are to come in and buy a nice doll for your cousin Bertha. She gave you a beautiful box of soldiers on your birthday, and you must give her a present on hers.”

“Bertha is a fat little fool,” said Victor, in a voice that was as loud as his mother’s and had more assurance in it.

“Victor, you are not to say such things. Bertha is not a fool, and she is not in the least fat. You are to come in and choose a doll for her.”

The couple passed into the shop, out of view and hearing of the two back-street children.

“My, he is in a wicked temper,” exclaimed Emmeline, but both she and Bert were inclined to side with him against the absent Bertha, who was doubtless as fat and foolish as he had described her to be.

“I want to see some dolls,” said the mother of Victor to the nearest assistant; “it’s for a little girl of eleven.”