with green blinds and trimmed with a great deal of wooden lace. The
wide lawn was well-kept and plots of flowers, here and there, gave
it a gay air.

Laura had a brother named Harold, who was short and fat. Harold
seemed to do nothing all day long but ride a wheel at a tearing pace
over the asphalt paths, and regularly, for two hours every morning,
to draw a shrieking bow across a tortured violin.

The more Maida watched Laura the less she liked her. She could see
that what Rosie said was perfectly true—Laura put on airs. Every
afternoon Laura played on the lawn. Her appearance was the signal
for all the small fry of the neighborhood to gather about the gate.
First would come the Doyles, then Betsy, then, one by one, the
strange children who wandered into the court, until there would be a
row of wistful little faces stuck between the bars of the fence.
They would follow every move that Laura made as she played with the
toys spread in profusion upon the grass.

Laura often pretended not to see them. She would lift her large
family of dolls, one after another, from cradle to bed and from bed
to tiny chair and sofa. She would parade up and down the walk, using
first one doll-carriage, then the other. She would even play a game
of croquet against herself. Occasionally she would call in a
condescending tone, “You may come in for awhile if you wish, little
children.” And when the delighted little throng had scampered to her
side, she would show them all her toy treasures on condition that
they did not touch them.

When the proceedings reached this stage, Maida would be so angry