The Toy Shop

The little shop was a modest place. On one side was a counter where, safe under glass, were home-made candies and cakes, with a rosy-cheeked apple or two. But, lining the walls, tumbling over shelves, crowded into old-fashioned presses, were the toys. There were dolls, of course, patrician wax dolls with delicate eyebrows of real hair, hearty, wooden-jointed dolls that were a real comfort to little mothers. There were wheels of fortune where one could see a steeple-chase if he spun hard enough to make the horses vault the hurdles. There was a fascinating confusion of supple-jacks, house furniture, houses of Oriental magnificence, little imported German toys - horses, trees, dogs. As the Man's melancholy eyes comprehended all that the place contained to minister to childish delight, something of the bitterness left them. In its place was a curious inertness. One would have said that the man's being was paralyzed with doubt.