irl you ever saw.

She was like a china doll--the sixpenny kind; she had a white face, and
long yellow hair, done up very tight in two pigtails; her forehead was
very big and lumpy, and her cheeks came high up, like little shelves
under her eyes. Her eyes were small and blue. She had on a funny black
frock, with curly braid on it, and button boots that went almost up to
her knees. Her legs were very thin. She was sitting in a hammock chair
nursing a blue kitten--not a sky-blue one, of course, but the colour
of a new slate pencil. As we came up we heard her say to Noel--'Who are
you?'

Noel had forgotten about the bear, and he was taking his favourite part,
so he said--'I'm Prince Camaralzaman.'

The funny little girl looked pleased--

'I thought at first you were a common boy,' she said. Then she saw the
rest of us and said--

'Are you all Princesses and Princes too?'

Of course we said 'Yes,' and she said--

'I am a Princess also.' She said it very well too, exactly as if it were
true. We were very glad, because it is so seldom you meet any children
who can begin to play right off without having everything explained to
them. And even then they will say they are going to 'pretend to be' a
lion, or a witch, or a king. Now this little girl just said 'I _am_ a
Princess.' Then she looked at Oswald and said, 'I fancy I've seen you at
Baden.'

Of course Oswald said, 'Very likely.'

The little girl had a funny voice, and all her words were quite plain,
each word by itself; she didn't talk at all like we do.

H. O. asked her what the cat's name was, and she said 'Katinka.' Then
Dicky said--

'Let's get away from the windows; if you play near windows some one
inside generally knocks at them and says "Don't".'

The Princess put down the cat very carefully and said--

'I am forbidden to walk off the grass.'

'That's a pity,' said Dora.

'But I will if you like,' said the Princess.

'You mustn't do things you are forbidden to do,' Dora said; but Dicky
showed us that there was some more grass beyond the shrubs with only a
gravel path between. So I lifted the Princess over the gravel, so that
she should be able to say she hadn't walked off the grass. When we got
to the other grass we all sat down, and the Princess asked us if
we liked 'dragees' (I know that's how you spell it, for I asked
Albert-next-door's uncle).

We said we thought not, but she pulled a real silver box out of her
pocket and showed us; they w