but not
the wooden plates that stand in a row.
They came out of a box of toy tea-things, and I can’t think what
became of the others;
But one never can tell what becomes of anything when one has brothers.)
Jemima is much smaller than I am, and, being made of wood, she is thin;
She takes up too much room inside, but she can lie outside on the roof
without breaking it in. 
I wish I had a drawing-room to put her in when I want to really cook;
I have to have the kitchen-table outside as it is, and the
pestle-and-mortar is rather too heavy for it, and everybody
can look. 
There’s no front door to the house, because there’s no front to have a
door in, and beside,
If there were, I couldn’t play with anything, for I shouldn’t know how
to get inside. 
I never heard of a house with only one room, except the cobbler’s, and
his was a stall. 
I don’t quite know what that is; but it isn’t a house, and it served
him for parlour and kitchen and all. 
Father says that whilst he is about it, he thinks he shall add on
a wing;
And brother Bill says he’ll nail my Doll’s House on the top of an
old tea-chest, which will come to the same thing.

* * * * *

Father’s house is not finished, though the wing is; for now the
builder says it will be all wrong if there isn’t another
to match;
And my house isn’t done either, though it’s nailed on, for Bill took
off the roof to make a new one of thatch. 
The paint is very much scratched, but he says that’s nothing, for it
must have had a new coat;
And he means to paint it for me, inside and out, when he paints
his own boat. 
There’s a sad hole in the floor, but Bill says the wood is as rotten
as rotten can be: 
Which was why he made such a mess of the side with trying to put real
glass in the window, through which one can see. 
Bill says he believes that the shortest plan would be to make a new
Doll’s House with proper rooms, in the regular way;
Which was what the builder said to Father when he wanted to build in
the old front; and to-day
I heard him tell him the old materials were no good to use and weren’t
worth the expense of carting away. 
I don’t know when I shall be able to play at dolls again, for all the
things are put away in a box;
Except Jemima and the pestle-and-mortar, and they’re in the bottom
drawer with my Sunday frocks. 
I almost wish I had kept the house as it was before;
We managed very well with a painted window and without a front door. 
I don’t know what Father means to do with his house, but if ever
mine is finished, I’ll never have it altered any more.

THE BLUE-BELLS ON THE LEA.

FAIRY KING.