“It’s someone else’s turn now,” she was not quite so pleased, and soon said in a discontented voice:
“I’m tired of this. Let’s go indoors and see your playthings.”
Here it was the same thing over again, for she found something slighting to say even of the Lady Dulcibella, who was sitting prepared to receive visitors in her best pink frock.
“Can she talk?” asked Ethelwyn. “My last new doll says ‘papa,’ ‘mama.’”
Then her eye fell on the luckless Jemima, who, in her usual mean attire, was sitting in the background with her head drooping helplessly, for it had been loosened by constant execution.
“Oh,” cried Ethelwyn, pouncing upon her with more animation than she had yet shown, “here’s a fright!”
She held the doll up by its frock, so that its legs and one remaining arm dangled miserably in the air.
“It’s only Jemima,” said Pennie. She was vexed that Ethelwyn had seen her at all, and there was something painful in having her held up to the general scorn.
Ethelwyn began to giggle.
“Why do you keep a guy like that?” she said. “Why don’t you burn it?”