"I never--never--will,--your Highness," stammered Cynthia, quite overwhelmed. Suddenly she started forward.
"Why, there is the lost doll!" she cried out. "There is Lady Patsy.
How did she get into Racketty-Packetty House?"
"Perhaps she went there to see them because they were so poor and shabby," said the little girl Princess. "Perhaps she likes this one," and she pointed to Peter Piper. "Do you know when I picked him up their arms were about each other. Please let her stay with him. Oh!" she cried out the next instant and jumped a little. "I felt as if the boy one kicked his leg."
And it was actually true, because Peter Piper could not help it and he had kicked out his ragged leg for joy. He had to be very careful not to kick any more when he heard what happened next.
As the Princess liked Racketty-Packetty House so much, Cynthia gave it to her for a present--and the Princess was really happy--and before she went away she made a little speech to the whole Racketty-Packetty family, whom she had set all in a row in the ragged old, dear old, shabby old drawing-room where they had had so much fun.
"You are going to come and live with me, funny, good-natured loves," she said. "And you shall all be dressed beautifully again and your house shall be mended and papered and painted and made as lovely as ever it was. And I am going to like you better than all my other dolls" houses--just as Grandmamma said she liked hers."
And then she was gone.
And every bit of it came true. Racketty-Packetty House was carried to a splendid Nursery in a Palace, and Meg and Peg and Kilmanskeg and Ridiklis and Gustibus and Peter Piper were made so gorgeous that if they had not been so nice they would have grown proud. But they didn"t. They only grew jollier and jollier and Peter Piper married Lady Patsy, and Ridiklis"s left leg was mended and she was painted into a beauty again--but she always remained the useful one. And the dolls in the other dolls" houses used to make deep curtsies when a Racketty-Packetty House doll pa.s.sed them, and Peter Piper could scarcely stand it because it always made him want to stand on his head and laugh--and so when they were curtsied at-- because they were related to the Royal Dolls House--they used to run into their drawing room and fall into fits of giggles and they could only stop them by all joining hands together in a ring and dancing round and round and round and kicking up their heels and laughing until they tumbled down in a heap.
[Transcriber"s Note: See picture curtsies.jpg]
And what do you think of that for a story. And doesn"t it prove to you what a valuable Friend a Fairy is--particularly a Queen one?