The Toy-Room
little while.” And with a sigh Nichette handed the lonesomest doll to her truly mamma. Clotilde held her awkwardly at first.
“Do you think she likes it?” she asked timidly. “I don’t yet know how, very well.”
Nichette clapped her hands and danced for joy. “Oh, she is so happy!” she cried. “Kiss her, Queen.”
Clotilde hesitated. “I—I don’t know how,” she faltered.
“Don’t know how to kiss her! Oh, Queen! I will show you,” and Nichette threw her arms about the two, and kissed first the doll, then the little royal mother. Clotilde turned very pale, then red as one of the garden roses.
“I never had any one kiss me before,” she said. “No one in the palace would dare. My uncles and aunts would not think of doing anything so—so undignified. Is that why you called Mignon the lonesomest doll,—because I left her all alone and never kissed her?”
Nichette nodded.
“Well, I am more lonesome than she, Nichette,” said the little Queen sadly, looking down39
