"the little girl"
'the little girl' is definitely a mystery. She arrives one night at the Lane Estate in need of care and love. For reasons Dorian Lane cannot explain herself, she is drawn to the girl she names Lela and takes her under her care. Who is she and where did she come from? No one seems to know. Precocious to be sure, she loves to play with her dolly given her by Miss Dorian. This is the way until one night her dolly disappears, and she aims to find her! Lela wants to be friends with everyone, but she tends to get in the way and is called by Nana a 'wild child'! "Stay out of my kitchen child!" Even so, she allows her boy William to play with Lela when he isn't busy, and they have the greatest of times until she recruits him to help find her dolly. "I know where she is, and he will pay!"
