Till I was nearly nine years old I was exceedingly fond of dolls, of
which I had several of different degrees of ugliness. But about that age
I was taken away for a few weeks to visit an aunt of my mother's at the
seaside, and as we travelled all the way there and back in the coach,
our luggage had to be much less in quantity than can now be comfortably
stowed away in the van of an express train. And "Lois must leave her
dolls at home" was the decision of my sixteen-year old sister Emilia,
who, with my mother and myself, was to make the journey.

At first I was greatly distressed, though, being a very quiet and
uncomplaining child, I said little.

"Mayn't I take one?" I said humbly to my mother. "Miss Trotter or Lady
Mirabelle would take up so little room; or might I carry one in my
arms?"

Emilia, my sister, was desired to look over the dolls and report on
them. She did so, but, alas! most unfavourably.

"They are such disreputable-looking things," she said half-laughingly to
my mother, "I should really be ashamed for my aunt to see them. She
likes everything so neat, you know. And mother, Lois is really growing a
great girl--don't you think it is a good time to break her of dolls?"

So my dolls were left behind. I don't think I grieved _very_ much over
them. The excitement of the journey and the being considered a great
girl by Emilia went far to console me. Besides, I had been beginning to
find such big dolls rather inconvenient, as I did not care to play with
them in the common way merely. My great pleasure was in making them act
the different characters in some romance of my own concoction, and I
found smaller _dramatis personae_ more easily managed. Of late I had even
tried to cut out figures in paper for this purpose, but I could not make
them anything but grotesque and ugly, and had for some time past been
"casting about" in my mind as to some less objectionable puppets.

How well I remember the first night at Sandilands! The journey I have
somehow almost forgotten. I suppose it was in no way very remarkable,
and it is not unlikely that I fell asleep in the coach, and that this
had to do with what followed.

My great-aunt was a tiny little old lady, so tiny that small as I was
myself she made me feel clumsy. Her house, too, was in proportion to
herself. She received us with the greatest affection, but was so
nervously anxious to make us comfortable that I could not but feel
strange and shyer than usua