. Maida was very polite
but it was evident that she was not much interested.

Next they went upstairs to a big playroom which covered the whole
top of the house. Shelves covered with books and toys lined the
walls. A fire, burning in the big fireplace, made it very cheerful.

"Oh, what a darling doll-house," Maida exclaimed, pausing before the
miniature mansion, very elegantly furnished.

"Oh, do you like it?" Laura beamed with pride.

"I just love it! Particularly because it's so little."

"Little!" Laura bristled. "I don't think it's so very little. It's
the biggest doll-house I ever saw. Did you ever see a bigger one?"

Maida looked embarrassed. "Only one."

"Whose was it?"

"It was the one my father had built for me at Pride's. It was too
big to be a doll's house. It was really a small cottage. There were
four rooms--two upstairs and two downstairs and a staircase that you
could really walk up. But I don't like it half so well as this one,"
Maida went on truthfully. "I think it's very queer but, somehow, the
smaller things are the better I like them. I guess it's because I've
seen so many big things."

Laura looked impressed and puzzled at the same time. "And you really
could walk up the stairs? Let's go up in the cupola," she suggested,
after an uncertain interval in which she seemed to think of nothing
else to show.

The stairs at the end of the playroom led into the cupola. Maida
exclaimed with delight over the view which she saw from the windows.
On one side was the river with the draw-bridge, the Navy Yard and
the monument on Bunker Hill. On the other stretched the smoky
expanse of Boston with the golden dome of the state house gleaming
in the midst of a huge, red-brick huddle.

"Did you have a cupola at Pride's Crossing?" Laura asked
triumphantly.

"Oh, no--how I wish I had!"

Laura beamed again.

"Laura likes to have things other people haven't," Maida thought.

Her hostess now conducted her back over the two flights of stairs to
the lower floor. They went into the dining-room, which was all
shining oak and glittering cut-glass; into the parlor, which was
filled with gold furniture, puffily upholstered in blue brocade;
into the libraries, which Maida liked best of all, because there
were so many books and--

"Oh, oh, oh!" she exclaimed, stopping before one of the pictures;
"that's Santa Maria in Cosmedin. I haven't seen that since I left
Rome."

"How long did you stay in Rome, little g