Page:Stories told to a child.djvu/18

 manner in which we had been taught to express ourselves. We examined each other's clothes, and when we had a convenient opportunity tried them on. When this amusement failed we unpacked my toys, but none of them pleased Lucy till we came to two good-sized dolls, dressed in the ordinary costume of British babies; these we no sooner found than we thought how delightful it would be to dress them up in complete suits of Friends' clothes. It was a very rainy day; so we went to the eldest daughter—'sister,' as the children called her—and asked her for some pieces of silk, and scraps of cloth. She was very bountiful, and gave us some pieces of ribbon besides. We took our treasures, our little red work-boxes, and the dolls, to a room in the roof—a large, partially empty place, where we were sometimes allowed to play—and there, with infinite care and pains, we made each of them a dove-colored silk gown of the most approved shape, a muslin handkerchief, a three-cornered brown shawl, and a proper silk bonnet. When the clothes were finished, we wetted the hair of the dolls to take out the curl, and then dressed them, and took them down into the hall, where we walked about with them by way of giving them an airing. I never saw Lucy's father laugh heartily but once, and it was on that occasion; the sight of the 'Puppet Friends,' as he called them, quite overcame his habitual gravity; unluckily, we presently met Lucy's grandmother, who was far from regarding them with the same good-humored indulgence, and it was a painful fact to us, at the time, that after we were gone to bed, the 'Puppet Friends' mysteriously disappeared. Rh