“Oh, yes, I’ll be good, Granny. Isn’t it funny,” Maida went on. The tone of her voice showed that she was thinking hard. “Laura makes me mad—oh, just hopping mad,”—“hopping mad” was one of Rosie’s expressions—“and yet it seems to me I’d die before I’d let her know it.” Laura was waiting for her on the piazza when Maida presented herself at the Lathrop door. “Won’t you come in and take your things off, first?” she said. “I thought we’d play in the house for awhile.” She took Maida immediately upstairs to her bedroom—a large room all furnished in blue—blue paper, blue bureau scarf covered with lace, blue bed-spread covered with lace, a big, round, blue roller where the pillows should be. “How do you like my room, Maida?” “It’s very pretty.” “This is my toilet-set.” Laura pointed to the glittering articles on the bureau. “Papa’s given them to me, one piece at a time. It’s all of silver and every thing has my initials on it. What is your set of?” Laura paused before she asked this last question and darted one of her sideways looks at Maida. “She thinks I haven’t any toilet-set and she wants to make me say so,” Maida thought. “Ivory,” she said aloud. “Ivory! I shouldn’t think that would be very pretty.” Laura opened her bureau drawers, one at a time, and showed Maida the pretty clothes packed in neat piles there. She opened the large closet and displayed elaborately-made frocks, suspended on hangers. And all the time, with little sharp, sideways glances, she was studying the effect on Maida. But Maida’s face betrayed none of the wonder and envy that Laura evidently expected. Maida was very polite but it was evident that she was not much interested. Next they went upstairs to a big playroom which covered the whole top of the house. Shelves covered with books and toys lined the walls. A fire, burning in the big fireplace, made it very cheerful. “Oh, what a darling doll-house,” Maida exclaimed, pausing before the miniature mansion, very elegantly furnished. “Oh, do you like it?” Laura beamed with pride. “I just love it! Particularly because it’s so little.” “Little!” Laura bristled. “I don’t think it’s so very little. It’s the biggest doll-house I ever saw. Did you ever see a bigger one?” Maida looked embarrassed. “Only one.” “Whose was it?” “It was the one my father had built for me at Pride’s. It was too big to be a doll’s house. It was really a small cottage. There were four rooms—two upstairs and two downstairs and a staircase that you could really walk up. But I don’t like it half so well as this one,” Maida went on truthfully. “I think it’s very queer but, somehow, the smaller things are the better I like them. I guess it’s because I’ve seen so many big things.” Laura looked impressed and puzzled at the same time. “And you really could walk up the stairs? Let’s go up in the cupola,” she suggested, after an uncertain interval in which she seemed to think of nothing else to show.