been
very long in the parlour before the door opened, and in came Miss Lizzie
with two dolls tucked clumsily under her arm. She was followed by her
brother John, a year or so younger than herself, not simply to play
propriety at our interview, but to show his own two whips in emulation
of his sister's dolls. I did my best to make myself agreeable to my
visitors, showing much admiration for the dolls and dolls' dresses, and,
with a very serious demeanour, asking many questions about their age and
character. I did not think that Lizzie distrusted my sincerity, but it
was evident she was both bewildered and a little contemptuous. Although
she was ready herself to treat her dolls as if they were alive, she
seemed to think rather poorly of any grown person who could fall
heartily into the spirit of the fiction. Sometimes she would look at me
with gravity and a sort of disquietude, as though she really feared I
must be out of my wits. Sometimes, as when I inquired too particularly
into the question of their names, she laughed at me so long and heartily
that I began to feel almost embarrassed. But when, in an evil moment, I
asked to be allowed to kiss one of them, she could keep herself no
longer to herself. Clambering down from the chair on which she sat
perched to show me, Cornelia-like, her jewels, she ran straight out of
the room and into the bar--it was just across the passage,--and I could
hear her telling her mother in loud tones, but apparently more in sorrow
than in merriment, that _the gentleman in the parlour wanted to kiss
Dolly_. I fancy she was determined to save me from this humiliating
action, even in spite of myself, for she never gave me the desired
permission. She reminded me of an old dog I once knew, who would never
suffer the master of the house to dance, out of an exaggerated sense of
the dignity of that master's place and carriage.

After the young people were gone there was but one more incident ere I
went to bed. I heard a party of children go up and down the dark street
for a while, singing together sweetly. And the mystery of this little
incident was so pleasant to me that I purposely refrained from asking
who they were, and wherefore they went singing at so late an hour. One
can rarely be in a pleasant place without meeting with some pleasant
accident. I have a conviction that these children would not have gone
singing before the inn unless the inn-parlour had been the delightful
place it was. At l