walls. A fire, burning in the big fireplace, made it very cheerful.

“Oh, what a darling doll-house,” Maida exclaimed, pausing before the
miniature mansion, very elegantly furnished.

“Oh, do you like it?” Laura beamed with pride.

“I just love it! Particularly because it’s so little.”

“Little!” Laura bristled. “I don’t think it’s so very little. It’s
the biggest doll-house I ever saw. Did you ever see a bigger one?”

Maida looked embarrassed. “Only one.”

“Whose was it?”

“It was the one my father had built for me at Pride’s. It was too
big to be a doll’s house. It was really a small cottage. There were
four rooms—two upstairs and two downstairs and a staircase that you
could really walk up. But I don’t like it half so well as this one,”
Maida went on truthfully. “I think it’s very queer but, somehow, the
smaller things are the better I like them. I guess it’s because I’ve
seen so many big things.”

Laura looked impressed and puzzled at the same time. “And you really
could walk up the stairs? Let’s go up in the cupola,” she suggested,
after an uncertain interval in which she seemed to think of nothing
else to show.

The stairs at the end of the playroom led into the cupola. Maida