ending me whirling
through the air, or as they more forcibly than eloquently expressed
it,--

"'Christie's torso of a doll is such a jolly thing to chuck at a fellow,
when you can't hit him!'

"Even little Harold, the two-year-old baby, who could not achieve such
feats as these, could drag me about, as he did, by my poor stumps of
legs, and cry, 'Who buy ducks? I dot ducks a sell!'

"The life I led in that riotous nursery was indeed an ordeal, and during
its course not only my few remaining charms were obliterated, like my
eyes, which were perseveringly rattled into the back of my head by
Ethel, but my wardrobe also vanished piecemeal. First my shoes went one
by one, and the socks followed, no one knew how or where, but they were
most probably dropped out of doors somewhere, like my hat, which took
flight in a rough wind at the seaside! For Christie's mode of carrying
me when she took me out for a walk was original certainly, but not a
model to be recommended to mothers of live dolls. She would tuck me
roughly under one arm, without taking any trouble to see whether my head
or my feet were uppermost, and would then set off at the round trot for
which she was famous, and that had earned from her brothers her
nickname, "the postman."

"The fictitious illnesses I have gone through would have furnished
patients for the largest hospital in the world, but my last
indisposition was of a character that made a more permanent alteration
even in me. Now measles of a very malignant kind were at that time
raging in the neighbourhood, and Christie's mother was very particular
in keeping her children as much as possible out of the infection. Ethel,
Christie's youngest sister, a child of about six years of age, had heard
this talked over in parlour and nursery, and had imbibed a secret terror
of this mysterious sickness which seemed so much dreaded by mother and
nurse. And if mothers and nurses only suspected how _very_ long the ears
of little pitchers really are, and how much more they are inclined to
take in all that _should_ not concern them, I think they would be as
careful as the House of Commons in sending out all intruders when
serious questions were debated in committee. I am only a doll, and have
therefore no vote in the matter, or else if I _had_ a voice in the
counsels of Home Government, I would suggest that the little ears which
take in lessons and let them out again on the other side, and which have
yet the power of