Page 76 - Among the camps, or, Young people's stories of the war

and turn about ut chewing in the most impartial and
friendly way. Harry was the old doctor's son. As she grew

a little older, however, the doctor brought her better dolls;
but the puppies got older faster than Nancy Pansy, and kept
on chewing up her dolls, so they did not last very long,
which, perhaps, was why she never had a “ real live doll,” as
she called it.
Some people said the reason the old doctor was so fond

of Nancy Pansy was because he had been a lover of her
beautiful aunt, whose picture as Charity giving; Bread to the
Poor Woman and her Children way m the stained-glass win­
dow in the church, with the Advent angei in the panel below,

to show that she had died at Christmas-tide and was an angei
herself n o w ; some said it was because he had had a little
daughter himself who had died when a wee bit of a girl,
and Nancy Pansy reminded him of her; some said it was
because his youngest born, his boy Harry, with the light
hair, who now commanded a company in the Arm y of N orth­

ern Virginia, was so fond of Nancy Pansy’s lovely sister
Ellen ; some said it was because the old doctor was fond of
alt children; but the old doctor sard it was "because Nancy
Pansy was Nancy Pansy,” and looked like an angel, and had

more sense than anybody in Middleburgh. except his old
sorrel horse Slouch, who, he always maintained, had sense
enough to have prevented the war if he had been consulted.
W hatever was the cause, Nancy Pansy was the old doc­
tor’s boon companion ; and wherever the old doctor was.