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The Lonesomest Doll
many wax babies of whom she had heard, than be locked all alone day after day in tiresome safety.
You see, Mignon was the birthday gift which a great foreign Prince had sent to the little Queen Clotilde; and she was the most wonderful doll that had ever been heard of in those days. All this happened long ago, before you could buy such lovely dolls in the shops,—before jointed bodies, and shutting eyes, and real teeth, and china hands with fingers were invented. Yet Queen Clotilde’s doll was even more beautiful than these; for she was made of wax, and her face was painted by a famous artist to look exactly like the Queen herself; and Queen Clotilde, you must know, was a wonderfully lovely little girl.
Mignon was not a very large doll—just big enough to hold comfortably. Her hair was golden, like the Queen’s, curly and long. Her eyes were blue, her cheeks pink, and she had the dearest little turned-up nose ever seen, and red, red lips. She could talk, too, which was something in those days,—not like the Queen;2
