United States or Yemen ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
However, after the first astonishment was over, his majesty, who to be sure was wisdom itself, and who understood natural philosophy that it was a charm to hear him discourse of those matters, and who was actually making a collection of dried beasts and birds in twelve thousand volumes of the best fool's-cap paper, immediately perceived what had happened, and taking out of the side-pocket of his breeches a diamond toothpick-case of his own turning, with the toothpick made of the only unicorn's horn he ever saw, he stuck it into the elephant's snout, and began to draw it out: but all his philosophy was confounded, when jammed between the elephant's legs he perceived the head of a beautiful girl, and between her legs a baby-house, which with the wings extended thirty feet, out of the windows of which rained a torrent of sugar-plumbs, that had been placed there to make room.
As her eyes rested on the large baby-house, with its folding-doors open to display the furniture of the parlors, and the two dolls, mother and daughter, seated at a table on which stood a neat china breakfasting set, she clasped her dimpled hands in silent ecstasy for half a minute, then rising to her utmost height on her rosy little toes, she exclaimed, "Oh, isn't I a happy little woman!"
A string was thrust into Cecil's hand, apparently fastened to her, and accounting for some sharp pulls she had felt during the whistling. She drew it in front in sharp haste, to be rid of the obnoxious instrument; but instead of a whistle, she found in her hand a little dust-pan and brush, fit for a baby-house, drawn through a ring, while the children eagerly cried, "What have you got?
She was quite satisfied that a good deal was effected by this make-belief of housekeeping; and was as merry as if we had been keeping a baby-house, for a joke. So we went on. Dora was hardly less affectionate to my aunt than to me, and often told her of the time when she was afraid she was 'a cross old thing'. I never saw my aunt unbend more systematically to anyone.
But was she not missed in the baby-house? Angelica Maria wept her loss, but her uncle consoled her by telling her the Spanish Doll must have retired to one of her castles in Spain. This cheered Angelica Maria, and she busied herself in fitting new dresses for the poor travel-stained dolls she had left. So this was the end of the Flight of the Dolls.
My inexperience in the art of story-telling must be manifest to everybody; for here I am talking of Helen, as of a young lady of sixteen or more, with shy notions of beaux and lovers in her head, whereas, in point of time, my story has not advanced by regular stages beyond the period of her childhood, when she thought more of a single doll in her baby-house, and held her in higher estimation, than the whole rising generation of the other sex.
"No!" burst out Henry at once; but there was a rounding of everyone's mouth to cry out Oh! and he quickly added, in a hasty scared way, "At least, when Davie came bothering me, I said he had better ask Betty, because she had been prying about, and meddling with the baby-house. I never meant that she had done it; but Davie is such a little jack- ass!" "Did you see her meddle with the baby-house!"
Her sister, little Emilia told me, was married a month ago, and she was proceeding to make the little Dutch puppets in her baby-house enact the wedding, one being dressed in a black gown and stiff ruff, like a Genevan minister, when she caught a tone that made her cry out that mother was weeping, and stump across the floor in her stout little shoes to comfort her, before I could hinder her.
She would not have taken from the baby-house a trinket, or an article of food from the kitchen, without leave, on any account.
All this was much more charming than their dull baby-house; though the Large Doll declared she had been used all her life to better society than she had yet found in the melon. But all this festivity was put an end to by a sudden shower. The Spanish Doll, afraid for her black lace, made for a hen-coop, where she had a battle with a Poland. The rest ran into the summer-house.
Word Of The Day