ay. "Why if it was mine, I wouldn't have it burned for worlds! Oh!
please push the chair away and let me look at it. There are no
doll's houses like it anywhere in these days." And when the
arm-chair was pushed aside she scrambled down on to her knees just
as if she was not a little girl Princess at all.

"Oh! Oh! Oh!" she said. "How funny and dear! What a darling old
doll's house. It is shabby and wants mending, of course, but it is
almost exactly like one my Grandmamma had--she kept it among her
treasures and only let me look at it as a great, great treat."

Cynthia gave a gasp, for the little girl Princess's Grandmamma had
been the Queen and people had knelt down and kissed her hand and
had been obliged to go out of the room backwards before her.

The little girl Princess was simply filled with joy. She picked up
Meg and Peg and Kilmanskeg and Gustibus and Peter Piper as if they
had been really a Queen's dolls.

"Oh! the darling dears," she said. "Look at their nice, queer faces
and their funny clothes. Just--just like Grandmamma's dollies'
clothes. Only these poor things do so want new ones. Oh! how I
should like to dress them again just as they used to be dressed,
and have the house all made just as it used to be when it was new."

"That old Racketty-Packetty House," said Cynthia, losing her
breath.

"If it were mine I should make it just like Grandmamma's and I
should love it more than any doll's house I have. I never--never--
never--saw anything as nice and laughing and good natured as these
dolls' faces. They look as if they had been having fun ever since
they were born. Oh! if you were to burn them and their home I--I
could never forgive you!"

"I never--never--will,--your Highness," stammered Cynthia, quite
overwhelmed. Suddenly she started forward.

"Why, there is the lost doll!" she cried out. "There is Lady Patsy.
How did she get into Racketty-Packetty House?"

"Perhaps she went there to see them because they were so poor and
shabby," said the little girl Princess. "Perhaps she likes this
one," and she pointed to Peter Piper. "Do you know when I picked
him up their arms were about each other. Please let her stay with
him. Oh!" she cried out the next instant and jumped a little. "I
felt as if the boy one kicked his leg."

And it was actually true, because Peter Piper could not help it and
he had kicked out his ragged leg for joy. He had to be very careful
not to kick any more when he heard what