The best parlour at the farm was a very nice place, but Seraphina (whose name takes so long to write that I think I had better call her Fina, as everyone else did) was not usually allowed to play there, and the blinds were always drawn down exactly halfway, because that is genteel. Sometimes Fina was taken into the parlour by Miss Patty, and then Miss Patty would bring out the curiosities that her brother the sailor had brought home from his voyages: South Sea necklaces of seeds and beads and cut-up reeds, and fat idols from India, with far more arms than most of us could find a use for. Then there were beady pincushions made by seamen, and a stuffed parrot exactly like life, except that one eye was out, and Chinese junks in beautiful carved ivory, and a pagoda (or Chinese temple), and that was of ivory too, and all carved out of one solid block, Miss Patty said. Fina loved the pagoda best of all the curiosities. You could see right into it. It was a tower with seven stories, and it had little gold bells on it that rang when Miss Patty took off the glass case and gently shook the wooden stand. Of course, Fina was never allowed to shake it herself. 'Where did it come from?' She asked this question every time she was shown the pagoda. 'It came from the Emperor of China's own Summer Palace at Pekin,' Miss Patty always said; 'but my brother Bob never would tell me how he got it.' Then, when Fina had had a last peep through the windows of the pagoda, the glass case would be put on again, and Fina would be told to 'run along now and play.' One day she was 'running along and playing' when she met a playfellow. It was a fat foxhound puppy, very clumsy and very affectionate. They had a romp together, and then the puppy blundered off, and Fina went indoors to wash her hands, because the puppy's idea of a romp had been a roll in the dust, which Fina had gladly consented to share. But as she passed the door of the best parlour she stopped a minute, for the door was open. It was the day for cleaning out the room, but Miss Patty had stopped in the middle of the cleaning to go to the back-door to see a pedlar who had some really wonderful bargains in handkerchiefs and silk dresses, and mixed white pins and back-hair combs. Fina often wondered afterwards whether that pedlar was a real pedlar or a magician in disguise. Now, Fina was an obedient little girl. She did _not_ slip into the parlour to have a look round just because the door was open and no one was about. But she had not been forbidden to _look_ in, if she got the chance, so she stood at the door and looked at the stuffed parrot, and the junk, and the rest of the things; and as she looked she started, and said: '_Oh!_ it will tumble down--I know it will--if a door banged even!'