ud Mary!

Perhaps it was because I crushed her new feather in kissing her (and
Maud Mary was very particular about her clothes); perhaps it was
because she was tired with travelling, which I forgot; or perhaps it
was because she would rather have had tea first, that Maud Mary was
not quite so nice about the Dutch fair as I should have liked her to
be.

She said she rather wondered that Lady Elizabeth had not given me a
big dolls' house like hers instead; that she had come away in such a
hurry that she forgot to lock hers up, and she should not be the least
surprised if the kitten got into it and broke something, but "it did
seem rather odd" to be invited in such a very hurried way; that just
when she _was_ going to a big house to pay a grand visit, of course
the dressmaker "disappointed" Mrs. Ibbetson, but "that was the way
things always did happen;" that the last time Mr. Ibbetson was in
Paris he offered to bring her a dolls' railway train, with real
first-class carriages really stuffed, but she said she would rather
have a locket, and that was the very one which was hanging round her
neck, and which was much handsomer than Lucy Jane Smith's, which cost
five pounds in London.

Maud Mary's inattention to the fair and the dolls was so obvious that
I followed my godmother's advice, and "made the best of it" by saying,
"I'm afraid you're very much tired, darling?"

Maud Mary tossed her chin and frowned.

It was "enough to tire anybody," she said, to travel on that
particular line. The railway of which her papa was a director was very
differently managed.

I think my godmother's courtesy to us, and her thoughtful kindness,
had fixed her repeated hints about self-control and good manners
rather firmly in my head. I distinctly remember making an effort to
forget my toys and think of Maud Mary's comfort.

I said, "Will you come and take off your things, darling?" and she
said, "Yes, darling;" and then we had tea.

But next day, when she was quite rested, and had really nothing to
complain of, I did think she might have praised the Dutch fair.

She said it "seemed such a funny thing" to have to play in an old
garret; but she need not have wanted to alter the arrangement of all
the shops, and have everything her own way, as she always had at home,
because, if her dolls' house was hers, my Dutch fair was mine. I did
think, for a moment, of getting my godmother to speak to her, but I
knew it would be of no use to compl