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faivour them with the following imteresting details, which she forwarded through Sir

Fenry Ponsonby.

“Fler Majesty was very much devoted to dolls, and indeed played with them ull she was nearly fourteen years old.

“Her favourites were small dolls small wooden dolls, which she could occupy her- sell with dressing, and who had @ house n which they could be placed.

“Nonc of THer Majesty’s children cared for dolls as she did, but then, they had gl com- panions, which never had.

“Miss Victoria Conroy (afterwards Mrs, [Tanmer) came to see her onee a week, and occasionally others played with her, hut with these exceptions she was Teft alone with the companionship of her dolls.”

In o postseript to the S Lo Ponsonby adds: “Since writing the [ have

above letter

above, bheen e formaed that 1t s not correet that . ‘nonc ol Her Majesty’s ehildren carcd for dolls,” as the four cldest Princesses were very fond of them.”

I'n a subsequent :

AVt

MAGAZTNI.

and 1833, when, Sir Henry says, “the dolls were packed away.”

Of the one hundred and thirty-two dolls preserved, the Queen herself dressed no fewer than thirty-two, in a few of which she was helped by Baroness Lehzen, afact that s scrupulously recorded in the book @ and they deserve to be handed down to as an example of the paticnee and ingenuity and

exquisite handiwork of a twelve-year-old Princess. The dolls are of the most unpromising

material, and would be regarded with scorn by the average Board school child of - to-day, whose toys, thanks to modern phil: umthropists, are of the most extravagant and cexpensive de- scription. But il the pleasures ol imagination

mean anything; if planning and creating and achieving are in themselves delightiul to a child, and the cutting out and makimg of ’ “dollv’s clothes

cspectally acharn to a little girl only sccond to nursing a hive baby, then there 1s no doubt that the Princess obtaimed many morc hours of purc hLl])plncxs from her extensive

Lol L

note S Henry wooden family adds “1T'he T TN~ than 1f 1t had Queen usually been launched dressed the dolls upon her ready from some cos ‘ dressed by the tumes she saw most expensive of

cither in the theatre or private hife.” There s, indeed, ample evidence o the care and attention lavished upon the dolls of the immensce importance w ith which they were regarded by their Royal little mistress ;o and an additional and interesting prool” of this 1s to be found in what one lmght call the “dolls’ archives.” "These records are to be found in an ordinary copy-book, now a Lttle yellow with years, on the inside cover of which s written in a childish, strageling, hut deter mined handwriting : Zasz of v Jolls” Then (ollows in delicate feminine writing the name of the doll, by whom it was dre ssed, and the character it represented, though this particular is somctimes omitted. When the doll represents an actress, the date and name of the ballet are also given, by means ol which one 1s enabled to d(,tummp the date of the dressing, which must have been between 1831

Parisian modistes. Whether expensive dolls were not obtainable at that period, or whether the Princess preferred these droll Tittle wooden creatures, as more suitable for the representation of - historical and theatrical personages, I know not; but the whole col- leetion is made up of them, and they cer- tainly make admirable little puppets, being articulated at the knees, thighs, joints, clbows and shoulders, and available for cevery kind of dramatic gesture and attitude.

fomust he admitted that they are not axsthetically beautiful, with their Dutch doll - not hutch —type of face. Occasionally, owing to a chin being a little more pointed, or a nosc a little blunter, there 1s a shight variation of expression ; but, with the excep- tion of height, which ranges from three inches to ninc nches, they are precisely the same. ‘There is the quecrest mixture of infancy and