her out of the fire, fresh and new, seen for the first time; a flood of images. She watched them with eyes suddenly cool and sleepless, relaxing her stiff attitude and smiling vaguely at the fire-irons. She's tired; she wants to go to bed said Mrs. Philps turning her head. The two heads came round--Do you my sweet asked Grace pressing her hand.--You shall have breakfast in bed if you like--Miriam grimaced briskly in her direction.--Did you have a Noah's _ark_ she asked smiling at the fire. Yes; Florrie had one. Uncle George gave it to her.--They began describing.--Didn't you love it? broke in Miriam presently.--Do you remember--and she recalled the Noah's ark as it had looked on the nursery floor, the offended stiffness of the rescued family, the look of the elephants and giraffes and the green and yellow grasshoppers and the red lady bird, all standing about alive amongst the little stiff bright green trees--We had a farm-yard too, pigs; and ducks and geese and hens with feathers--We used to stand them all out together on the floor, and the grocer's shop and all our dolls sitting round against the nursery wall. It used to make me _perfectly_ happy. It would still--Everyone laughed--It would. It _does_ only to think of it. And there was a doll's house with a door that opened and a staircase and furniture in the rooms. I can smell the smell of the inside at this moment. But the thing I liked best and never got accustomed to was a little alabaster church with coloured glass windows and a place inside for a candle. We used to put that out on the floor too. I wish I had it now.... The kaleidoscope. Do you _remember_ looking at the Kaleidoscope? I used to cry about it sometimes at night; thinking of the patterns I had not seen. I thought there was a new pattern every time you shook it, forever. We had a huge one with very small bits of glass. They clicked smoothly when the pattern changed and were very beautifully coloured.... Oh and do you remember those things--did you have a little paper _theatre_? They were all looking at her, not at the little theatre. She wished she had not mentioned it. It was so sacred and so secret that she had never thought of it or even mentioned it to herself all these years. She rushed on to the stereoscope, her eyes still on the little cardboard stage, hearing the sound of the paper scraping over the little wooden roller as the printed scenes came round backwards or forwards, and plunged into descriptions of deep views of the insides of cathedrals in sharp relief in a clear silver light, mountains, lakes, statuary in clear light out of doors and came back to the dolls, pressing alone wearily on through the dying interest of her hearers to discover with sleepy enthusiasm the wisdom and indifference and independence of Dutch dolls, the charm of their wooden bodies, the reasons why one never wanted to put any clothes on them, the dear kind friendliness of dolls