The wooden magician himself was bolting his sausage a minute on the top of the clock just as usual, only the jester fancied his cunning eyes rolled round at them with a peculiar leer as a cheerful whistle was heard on the stairs outside. A moment afterwards a lively brown-faced boy in sailor dress put his head in at the door. 'Hullo, Winnie,' he said, 'are you all alone?' 'Nurse has gone downstairs,' said Winnie, plaintively; 'I've got the dolls, but it's dull here somehow. Can't you come and help me to play, Archie?' Archie had been skating all the morning, and could not settle down just then to any of his favourite books, so he had come up to see Winnie with the idea of finding something to amuse him there--for though he was a boy, he did unbend at times, so far as to help her in her games, out of which he managed to get a good deal of amusement in his own peculiar way. But of course he had to make a favour of it, and must not let Winifred see that it was anything but a sacrifice for him to consent. 'I've got other things to do,' he said; 'and you know you always make a fuss when I do play with you. Look at last time!' 'Ah, but then you played at being a slave-driver, Archie, and you made me sell you my old black Dinah for a slave, and then you tied her up and whipped her. I didn't like _that_ game! But if you'll stay this time, I won't mind what else you do!' For Archie had a way of making the dolls go through exciting adventures, at which Winifred assisted with a fearful wonder that had a fascination about it. 'Girls don't know how to play with dolls, and that's a fact,' said Archie. 'I could get more fun out of that dolls' house than a dozen girls could' (he would have set fire to it); 'but I tell you what: if you'll let me do exactly what I like, and don't go interfering, except when I tell you to, perhaps I will stay a little while--not long, you know.' 'I promise,' said Winifred, 'if you won't break anything. I'll do just what you tell me.' 'Very well then, here goes; let's see who you've got. I say, who's this in the swell dress?' He was pointing to Ethelinda, whose brain began to tingle at once with a delicious excitement. 'He has noticed me at last,' she thought; 'I wonder if I could make him fall desperately in love with me!' and she turned her big blue eyes full upon him. 'Ah, if I could only speak--but perhaps I shall presently. I'm quite sure the romance is going to begin!' 'That's Ethelinda, Archie--isn't she pretty?' 'I've seen them uglier,' he said; 'she's like that Eve de Something we saw at Drury Lane--we'll have her, and there's that chap in the fool's dress, we may want him. Now we're ready.' 'What are you going to do with them, Archie?' 'You leave that to me. I've an idea, something much better than your silly tea-parties.' 'Why doesn't he tell that child to go?' thought Ethelinda, 'we don't want _her_!'