In one of the deep window recesses Roberta had set up her entire doll
family to housekeeping. She was very fond of her dolls. The mother
instinct in her was developed very early. She had wax dolls and china
dolls and rag dolls. Mrs. Marsden painted features on the rag dolls, and
they looked very natural. There was Miss Prim and Miss Slim, Mrs. Jolly
and Mrs. Folly, Miss Snappy and Miss Happy, named from their different
expressions. Roberta had the quaintest way of talking to her dolls. She
had caught some of Aunt Betsy's old-time ideas:

"Straighter, my dears, straighter. One's spine should never touch the back
of a chair," and, "Don't rest your elbows on the table while you are
eating; my great-grandmother used to keep cushions stuffed with pins to
slip under the children's elbows," etc.

Her favorite dolls were the figures cut out of the fashion plates of
Godey's Lady's Book. She was an artist with her fingers, if there was a
pair of scissors in them. So she took sheets of different colored
tissue-paper, cut dresses, and fitted them nicely on her dolls. Each doll
had a variety.

I believe she thought her dolls looked cosier at the dinner-table than
anywhere else, and she kept them sitting there a great deal. Sometimes
Polly, who seemed born to make trouble, would roll her eyes at the dolls
and say, "You iz de greedes' things. Whar iz you gwiner to put it?"

Then, of course, Roberta would feel obliged to take some notice of their
sitting at the table so long: "Come, get down now, dears. Little ladies
should _not_ appear greedy."