The Lonesomest Doll (1928)/Chapter 1

by Abbie Farwell Brown

I

Mignon

The lonesomest doll in the world lay staring up at the cover of her box and wished she had never been made. It is no fun to live in a pal­ace if you are kept there in the dark of one tiny little corner. It is no fun to wear a beautiful gown if no one else ever sees it. It is no fun to be a Queen’s doll if your royal mamma never plays with you at all.

Mignon longed to be hugged and kissed and loved like other dolls. She would rather be scarred and knocked about and broken like so 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; that would have been too wonderful to believe. But, like some of our accomplished dollies of to-day, Mignon could say “Mamma!” when you squeezed her gently.

The proudest thing about the Queen’s wonder­ful doll was her clothes. There never was seen such a beautiful dress as Mignon wore when she came in her fine satin-lined box, on the Queen’s eighth birthday. She was all in white satin and velvet and the richest lace, copied from the Queen’s own coronation robe, with a long train; and she had a crown on her head. Moreover, the crown was of real gold set with the most beautiful jewels,—rubies, emeralds, sapphires, and diamonds. In the front was a great white pearl, worth the price of a hundred such dollies as you can buy to-day. And up and down the white velvet train was embroidered in gold and silver and precious stones; so that this was the most splendid birthday doll which any little girl ever had.

But that was precisely the trouble. Mignon was too splendid for a real play doll. One would always be afraid of hurting her fine clothes. Besides, with all this gold and jewels, she was so valuable that the Lord Treasurer kept her locked up in a chest in the Treasure Room of the pal­ace; and little Clotilde had her brought out only once or twice a year, to see how she herself had looked on the day when she was crowned Queen. Only once or twice a year to see one’s mamma! This is why Mignon was the lonesomest doll in the world.