ever, but just next
door to Katherine's house. She found Katherine and Mary at home, playing
with their dolls.

As soon as the little girls saw Elizabeth, they said: "You can't play
with us unless you play the right way. You can't be Mother all the
time."

"Well, if you won't let me play my way, I won't play at all," said
Elizabeth, and ran on until she came to Sarah's house.

Sarah, Tom and Ned were jumping rope, and they called out to Elizabeth:
"You can't play with us unless you will turn the rope part of the time."

"I don't like to turn, I like to jump," Elizabeth complained. But when
she realized that she would not be allowed to jump until she first
turned the rope for the others, she left these children too, and went
next door to visit Sammy Smith.

That little boy and Susie were playing with a big wagon. They asked
Elizabeth to play with them, and because they were courteous little
children, and she was their visitor, they permitted her to take the
first ride, and pretended that they were two strong horses hitched to
her carriage. When they were tired, they told Elizabeth that it was
time for her to become a horse and let one of them ride.

"No," said Elizabeth, "I like to ride better than to pull the wagon."

"We won't let you ride any longer," they answered, "because it's your
turn to play that you are a horse."

"Then I'll go home," she said, and this time she did.

"What is the matter?" asked her mother.

"The children won't play the way I want them to, and I don't like them
any more because I think they are unkind," she answered. "I wish I could
go to fairy-land and be a princess, or else that I were a grown-up
lady."

"Even grown-up ladies and princesses cannot always have their own way,"
her mother said.

Elizabeth stood at the window and looked out across the street. Most of
the children had gathered there in front of Johnnie Jones's house, and
were jumping rope. Elizabeth could hear them counting, and laughing, and
talking. She began to feel very lonely. At last she put on her hat again
and ran back to join the children.

"If you will let me play with you," she said, "I'll play anything you
like."

"All right!" they answered, "and sometimes we'll play what you like."

"And I won't always ask for the best part any more," she said.

"You may have the part you like when it is your turn to choose," they
told her.

"I'll turn the rope now," Elizabeth added.

"You turn until some one t