The following version of this story was used to create this guide: Mansfield, Katherine. "A Doll's House." Katherine Mansfield Society, 1922. http://www.katherinemansfieldsociety.org/assets/KM-Stories/THE-DOLLS-HOUSE.pdf.

Note that all parenthetical citations refer to the page number from which the quotation is taken.

The story begins with the expository information that Mrs. Hay, an older woman who had stayed with the Burnell family prior to the events of the story, had sent the three Burnell children a doll's house. The house is described as very large and still smelling of fresh paint as it is carried into the courtyard at the Burnell home. It is a marvel for the young girls, who notice its details with enthusiasm and muse over how it looks even more perfect than real houses they have seen. One of the girls, Kezia, notices a small lamp in the dining room of the doll's house and is taken with its realistic appearance. The older Burnell daughter, Isabel, announces to Kezia that she will decide who at school can come see the doll's house and when. Once at school, girls begin to vying for the opportunity to see the doll's house, with the exception of the Kelveys, two girls who are described as always maintaining their distance from the Burnells.

Here, the story departs with plot slightly in order to describe the Kelveys, noting that the school they attended was the only school in the area and thus many kids from families of differing socio-economic statuses were mixed together. The Kelveys, the narrator explains, were the daughters of a single mother who cleaned all the houses in the neighborhood and dressed her daughters in hand-me-downs and scraps from those homes. Lil is the older sister and Else (referred to throughout the story as "our Else") is the younger, always following her sister around. The narrator notes the Kelvey sisters were excluded from the activities of all the other girls.

Nevertheless, the Kelveys are present to listen to Isabel talk about her new doll's house, though they do not ask to see it. Instead, Isabel starts bringing girls to the courtyard two at a time to see the house, and it becomes famous among the children in the area. Kezia asks her mother if she can bring the Kelveys to see the house, and her mother immediately rejects her request.

One day, while the girls are all eating, the other girls, including Isabel Burnell, begin taunting the Kelveys. They ask Lil if she is going to be a servant when she gets older, and Lil does not seem to mind the question, prompting the girl who asked to declare that the Kelveys' father is in prison. The other girls dance away, happy with having embarrassed the Kelveys. Later that day, as Isabel and the other Burnell daughter, Lottie, are changing their clothes, Kezia spots the Kelveys walking down the street and invites them into the courtyard to see the doll's house. Just as Kezia is showing the Kelveys the interior of the house, they are interrupted by Aunt Beryl, who announces that Kezia is not allowed to speak to the Kelveys and quickly ushers them away from the house. The Kelveys sit together on a drainpipe on the side of the road, comforting each other after their embarrassing encounter at the Burnell courtyard. Else announces to Lil that she saw the lamp inside the doll's house, and the two sisters sit quietly together.