To turn from royal salutes and mayors' addresses and the laying of corner-stones to playing with dolls is a little startling, but such was the course of the Princess' life. She was heir to the throne, and she could bestow prizes and receive delegations and meet the eager gaze of thousands without being at all troubled or embarrassed, but she was a child for all that; she was not allowed to sit at the table when her mother gave an elaborate dinner party for the King, and she still retained her liking for the dolls that her lack of playmates had made so dear to her. There is now in existence a little copybook on which is written "List of my dolls." By their number and their interest, they certainly deserve the honor of being catalogued, even at the present time, for there were 132 of them, and they were often dressed to imitate noted persons of the day. Most of them were little wooden creatures from three to nine inches high, with sharply pointed noses, cheeks red as a cherry in some one spot--wherever the brush of the maker had chanced to hit--jet black hair, and the most convenient joints, that enabled the small bodies to be arranged in many attitudes. The men dolls had small black mustaches, and the women dolls were distinguished by little yellow "back-combs" painted on the black dab which represented their hair. The baby dolls were made of rags, upon which comical little faces were painted. The fascination of these dolls does not lie in their beauty, but in their wardrobes. Most of them were dressed between 1831 and 1833, or when the Princess was from twelve to fourteen years old. One group represents the play of Kenilworth, which she had evidently seen. The Earl of Leicester is gorgeous in knee-breeches of pink satin, with slashes of white silk. His tunic reverses the order and is of white satin slashed with pink. He wears the blue ribbon of the Order of the Garter and a wide black velvet hat swept with yellow and white plumes. Queen Elizabeth appears in cloth of gold with enormous puffed sleeves. From her shoulders hangs a long train lined with bright crimson plush and trimmed with ermine. She wears crimson plush shoes and a heavy girdle of gold beads. There are all sorts of characters among these little wooden people. There are court ladies, actors, and dandified young gallants. Perched on a table is a merry little ballet-dancer in blue satin trimmed with pink and yellow roses. There are mothers with their babies, and there is "Mrs. Martha," a buxom housekeeper, with a white lawn frock, full sleeves, and purple apron pinked all around. She wears a white lace cap adorned with many frills and tied under her small wooden chin with pink ribbons. She stands beside a home-made dressing table of cardboard covered with white brocade.