“I am not in the mood for books at present,” she wrote finally, shortly before Christmas, “though I know that in future I shall want to write them more than anything else. But different books.” What those “different books” would have been we shall never know. She was seized by a sudden and fatal haemorrhage on the evening of January 9th. She is buried in the communal cemetery of Avon near Fontainebleau. On her gravestone are inscribed the words of Shakespeare she chose for the title-page of “Bliss,” words which had long been cherished by her and were to prove prophetic: “But I tell you, my lord fool, out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.” THE DOLL’S HOUSE When dear old Mrs. Hay went back to town after staying with the Burnells she sent the children a doll’s house. It was so big that the carter and Pat carried it into the courtyard, and there it stayed, propped up on two wooden boxes beside the feed-room door. No harm could come to it; it was summer. And perhaps the smell of paint would have gone off by the time it had to be taken in. For, really, the smell of paint coming from that doll’s house (“Sweet of old Mrs. Hay, of course; most sweet and generous!”)—but the smell of paint was quite enough to make any one seriously ill, in Aunt Beryl’s opinion. Even before the sacking was taken off. And when it was.... There stood the doll’s house, a dark, oily, spinach green, picked out with bright yellow. Its two solid little chimneys, glued on to the roof, were painted red and white, and the door, gleaming with yellow varnish, was like a little slab of toffee. Four windows, real windows, were divided into panes by a broad streak of green. There was actually a tiny porch, too, painted yellow, with big lumps of congealed paint hanging along the edge. But perfect, perfect little house! Who could possibly mind the smell? It was part of the joy, part of the newness. “Open it quickly, some one!” The hook at the side was stuck fast. Pat pried it open with his penknife, and the whole house-front swung back, and—there you were, gazing at one and the same moment into the drawing-room and dining-room, the kitchen and two bedrooms. That is the way for a house to open! Why don’t all houses open like that? How much more exciting than peering through the slit of a door into a mean little hall with a hatstand and two umbrellas! That is—isn’t it?—what you long to know about a house when you put your hand on the knocker. Perhaps it is the way God opens houses at dead of night when He is taking a quiet turn with an angel....