'I don't think so,' he said; 'that's the fair selling price.' 'Well, that's very curious,' said she, 'because the young man at Regent Street (a most charming person, by the way) positively wouldn't part with _me_ under thirty-five shillings, and he said so many delightful things about me that I feel quite sorry for him sometimes, when I think how he must be missing me. But then, very likely he's saying the same thing about some other doll now!' 'I suppose he is,' said the jester (he had seen something of toy-selling in his time); 'it's his business, you know.' 'I don't see how you can possibly tell,' said Ethelinda, who had not expected him to agree with her; 'the Lowther Arcade is not Regent Street.' The jester did not care to dispute this. 'And were you very happy at Regent Street?' he asked. 'Happy?' she repeated. 'Well, I don't know; at least, one was not bored there. I was in the best set, you see, the two-guinea one, and they were always getting up something to amuse us in the window--a review, or a sham fight, or a garden-party, or something. Last winter they gave us a fancy-dress ball--I went as Mary Stuart, and was very much admired. But here----' and she finished the sentence with a disdainful little shrug. 'I don't think you'll find it so very bad here, when you get a little more used to it,' he said; 'our mistress----' 'Pray don't use that very unpleasant word,' she interrupted sharply. 'Did you never hear of "dolls' rights?" _We_ call these people "hostesses."' 'Well, our hostess, then--Winifred, she's not unkind. She doesn't care much about me, and that cousin of hers, Master Archie, gives me a bad time of it when I come in his way, but really she's very polite and attentive to _you_.' 'Polite and attentive!' sneered Ethelinda (and if you have never seen a doll sneer, you can have no idea how alarming it is). 'I don't call it an attention to be treated like a baby by a little chit of a girl who can't dress herself properly yet--no style, no elegance, and actually a pinafore in the mornings!' This is the way some of these costly lady dolls talk about their benefactresses when the gas is out and they think no one overhears them. I don't know whether the plain old-fashioned ones, who are not so carefully treated, but often more tenderly loved, are as bad; but it is impossible to say--dolls are exceedingly artful, and there are persons, quite clever in other things, who will tell you honestly that they do not understand them in the least.