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Page 29
"And what was that familiar figure among the rest, in a yellow silk
dress and maroon velvet cloak and hood trimmed with black lace? How
those clothes recalled the friends who gave them to me! And surely this
was no other than my dear doll Rosa--the beloved companion of five
years of my youth, whose hair I wore in a locket after I was grown up.
No one could say I had ill-treated _her_. Indeed, she fixed her
eyes on me with a most encouraging smile--but then she always smiled,
her mouth was painted so.
"'All whom it may concern, take notice,' shouted the Jack-in-a-box, at
this point, 'that the rule of this honourable court is tit for tat.'
"'Tit, tat, tumble two,' muttered the slate in a cracked voice. (How
well I remembered the fall that cracked it, and the sly games of tit
tat that varied the monotony of our long multiplication sums!)
"'What are you talking about?' said the Jack-in-a-box, sharply; 'if you
have grievances, state them, and you shall have satisfaction, as I told
you before.'
"'---- and five make nine,' added the slate promptly, 'and six are
fifteen, and eight are twenty-seven--there we go again.' I wonder why I
never get up to the top of a line of figures right. It will never prove
at this rate.'
"'His mind is lost in calculations,' said the Jack-in-a-box,
'besides--between ourselves--he has been "cracky" for some time. Let
some one else speak, and observe that no one is at liberty to pass a
sentence on the prisoner heavier than what he has suffered from her. I
reserve _my_ judgment to the last.'
"'I know what that will be,' thought I; 'oh dear! oh dear! that a
respectable maiden lady should live to be burnt as a Guy Fawkes!'
"'Let the prisoner drink a gallon of iced water at once, and then be
left to die of thirst.'
"The horrible idea that the speaker might possibly have the power to
enforce his sentence diverted my attention from the slate, and I looked
round. In front of the Jack-in-a-box stood a tiny red flower-pot and
saucer, in which was a miniature cactus. My thoughts flew back to a
bazaar in London where, years ago, a stand of these fairy plants had
excited my warmest longings, and where a benevolent old gentleman whom
I had not seen before, and never saw again, bought this one and gave it
to me. Vague memories of his directions for repotting and tending it
reproached me from the past. My mind misgave me that after all it had
died a dusty death for lack of water. True, the cactus tribe being
succulent plants do not demand much moisture, but I had reason to fear
that, in this instance, the principle had been applied too far, and
that after copious baths of cold spring water in the first days of its
popularity it had eventually perished by drought. I suppose I looked
guilty, for it nodded its prickly head towards me, and said, 'Ah! you
know me. You remember what I was, do you? Did you ever think of what I
might have been? There was a fairy rose which came down here not long
ago--a common rose enough, in a broken pot patched with string and
white paint. It had lived in a street where it was the only pure
beautiful thing your eyes could see. When the girl who kept it died
there were eighteen roses upon it. She was eighteen years old, and they
put the roses in the coffin with her when she was buried. That was
worth living for. Who knows what I might have done? And what right had
you to cut short a life that might have been useful?'
"Before I could think of a reply to these too just reproaches, the
flower-pot enlarged, the plant shot up, putting forth new branches as
it grew; then buds burst from the prickly limbs, and in a few moments
there hung about it great drooping blossoms of lovely pink, with long
white tassels in their throats. I had been gazing at it some time in
silent and self-reproachful admiration, when I became aware that the
business of this strange court was proceeding, and that the other toys
were pronouncing sentence against me.
"'Tie a string round her neck and take her out bathing in the brooks,'
I heard an elderly voice say in severe tones. It was the Dowager Doll.
She was inflexibly wooden, and had been in the family for more than one
generation.
"'It's not fair,' I exclaimed, 'the string was only to keep you from
being carried away by the stream. The current is strong and the bank
steep by the Hollow Oak Pool, and you had no arms or legs. You were old
and ugly, but you would wash, and we loved you better than many waxen
beauties.'
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