“‘I have not made you a night-dress, my love,’ Rosa continued; ’I am not fond of my needle, you know. You were not fond of your needle, I think, I fear you must go to bed in your clothes, my dear.’

“‘You are very kind,’ I said, ’but I am not tired, and—­it would not bear my weight.’

“‘Pooh! pooh!’ said Rosa.  ’My love!  I remember passing one Sunday in it with the rag-doll, and the Dowager, and the Punch and Judy (the amount of pillow their two noses took up I shall never forget!), and the old doll that had nothing on, because her clothes were in the dolls’ wash and did not get ironed on Saturday night, and the Highlander, whose things wouldn’t come off, and who slept in his kilt.  Not bear you?  Nonsense!  You must go to bed, my dear.  I’ve got other things to do, and I can’t leave you lying about.’

“‘The whole lot of you did not weigh one quarter of what I do,’ I cried desperately.  ’I cannot and will not get into that bed; I should break it all to pieces, and hurt myself into the bargain.’

“‘Well, if you will not go to bed I must put you there,’ said Rosa, and without more ado, she snatched me up in her kid arms, and laid me down.

“Of course it was just as I expected.  I had hardly touched the two little pillows (they had a meal-baggy smell from being stuffed with bran), when the woodwork gave way with a crash, and I fell—­fell—­fell—­

“Though I fully believed every bone in my body to be broken, it was really a relief to get to the ground.  As soon as I could, I sat up, and felt myself all over.  A little stiff, but, as it seemed, unhurt.  Oddly enough, I found that I was back again under the tree; and more strange still, it was not the tree where I sat with Rosa, but the old oak-tree in the little wood.  Was it all a dream?  The toys had vanished, the lights were out, the mosses looked dull in the growing dusk, the evening was chilly, the hole no larger than it was thirty years ago, and when I felt in my pocket for my spectacles I found that they were on my nose.

“I have returned to the spot many times since, but I never could induce a beetle to enter into conversation on the subject, the hole remains obstinately impassable, and I have not been able to repeat my visit to the Land of Lost Toys.

“When I recall my many sins against the playthings of my childhood, I am constrained humbly to acknowledge that perhaps this is just as well.”

* * * * *

SAM SETS UP SHOP.

“I think you might help me, Dot,” cried Sam, in dismal and rather injured tones.

It was the morning following the day of the earthquake, and of Aunt Penelope’s arrival.  Sam had his back to Dot, and his face to the fire, over which indeed he had bent for so long that he appeared to be half roasted.

“What do you want?” asked Dot, who was working at a doll’s night-dress that had for long been partly finished, and now seemed in a fair way to completion.