after their weary march from Liliput.  But what cares Annie for soldiers?  No conquering queen is she—­neither a Semiramis nor a Catharine; her whole heart is set upon that doll who gazes at us with such a fashionable stare.  This is the little girl’s true plaything.  Though made of wood, a doll is a visionary and ethereal personage endowed by childish fancy with a peculiar life; the mimic lady is a heroine of romance, an actor and a sufferer in a thousand shadowy scenes, the chief inhabitant of that wild world with which children ape the real one.  Little Annie does not understand what I am saying, but looks wishfully at the proud lady in the window.  We will invite her home with us as we return.—­Meantime, good-bye, Dame Doll!  A toy yourself, you look forth from your window upon many ladies that are also toys, though they walk and speak, and upon a crowd in pursuit of toys, though they wear grave visages.  Oh, with your never-closing eyes, had you but an intellect to moralize on all that flits before them, what a wise doll would you be!—­Come, little Annie, we shall find toys enough, go where we may.

Now we elbow our way among the throng again.  It is curious in the most crowded part of a town to meet with living creatures that had their birthplace in some far solitude, but have acquired a second nature in the wilderness of men.  Look up, Annie, at that canary-bird hanging out of the window in his cage.  Poor little fellow!  His golden feathers are all tarnished in this smoky sunshine; he would have glistened twice as brightly among the summer islands, but still he has become a citizen in all his tastes and habits, and would not sing half so well without the uproar that drowns his music.  What a pity that he does not know how miserable he is!  There is a parrot, too, calling out, “Pretty Poll!  Pretty Poll!” as we pass by.  Foolish bird, to be talking about her prettiness to strangers, especially as she is not a pretty Poll, though gaudily dressed in green and yellow!  If she had said “Pretty Annie!” there would have been some sense in it.  See that gray squirrel at the door of the fruit-shop whirling round and round so merrily within his wire wheel!  Being condemned to the treadmill, he makes it an amusement.  Admirable philosophy!

Here comes a big, rough dog—­a countryman’s dog—­in search of his master, smelling at everybody’s heels and touching little Annie’s hand with his cold nose, but hurrying away, though she would fain have patted him.—­Success to your search, Fidelity!—­And there sits a great yellow cat upon a window-sill, a very corpulent and comfortable cat, gazing at this transitory world with owl’s eyes, and making pithy comments, doubtless, or what appear such, to the silly beast.—­Oh, sage puss, make room for me beside you, and we will be a pair of philosophers.