Lady Arabella was a big little-girl doll, and Merrythought had made her for little Princess Maud.
It happened this way. Early in December, Santa Claus had a letter from Princess Maud’s grandmother in which she said that she would like Princess Maud to have a big little-girl doll for Christmas this year. Santa Claus took the letter to Merrythought, his best workman, and Merrythought sat himself down and made Lady Arabella.
Now Merrythought was so tired of curly hair and lace dresses with satin bows and pale blue kid shoes to match that he didn’t give Lady Arabella any of these. He thought to himself, ‘Perhaps Princess Maud is tired of fancy dresses, too; perhaps she would like a plain comfortable doll whose clothes she could not spoil no matter how hard she played with her.’ So he gave Lady Arabella pretty blue eyes and pink cheeks, to be sure, and two long yellow braids tied with flyaway pink bows. But he dressed her in neat brown shoes and stockings and in a plain, though fine, white frock. And over the frock he put a pink-and-white pinafore that covered her from top to toe, a good, sensible pinafore that was not in the least like a lace dress with satin bows and pale blue kid shoes to match. The pinafore had pockets and in one pocket was a tiny handkerchief and in the other a purse just large enough to hold a penny. Oh! Merrythought knew how to do things When it came to making dolls.
Now you might think that Lady Arabella was too plain and sensible for a Christmas doll. But there was something about her that every one liked. The toys liked her, the Brownies liked her—you remember that Merrythought liked her best of all the toys he had made that year—and Santa Claus felt sure that Princess Maud and her grandmother would be delighted with her, too.
Now when Mischief left Merrythought he went looking for Lady Arabella, and he found her seated on the window-sill behind the curtain watching the reindeer romping in the snow.
Mischief slipped behind the curtain too, and first of all he asked Lady Arabella if she had heard him talking to Merrythought just now.
Yes, Lady Arabella had heard every single word.
Then Mischief asked a very strange question, indeed.
‘Do you know what a tantrum is, Lady Arabella?’ asked he.