frightened that the sight of it is an era in my
life? It is not a hideous visage in itself; it
is even meant to be droll; why then were its
stolid features so intolerable? Surely not
because it hid the wearer's face. An apron
would have done as much; and though I
should have preferred even the apron away,
it would not have been absolutely insupportable,
like the mask? Was it the immovability
of the mask? The doll's face was immovable,
but I was not afraid of her. Perhaps that
fixed and set change coming over a real face,
infused into my quickened heart some remote
suggestion and dread of the universal change
that is to come on every face, and make it
still? Nothing reconciled me to it. No drummers,
from whom proceeded a melancholy
chirping on the turning of a handle; no regiment
of soldiers, with a mute band, taken out
of a box, and fitted, one by one, upon a stiff
and lazy little set of lazy-tongs; no old woman,
made of wires and a brown-paper composition,
cutting up a pie for two small children; could
give me permanent comfort, for a long time.
Nor was it any satisfaction to be shown the
Mask, and see that it was made of paper, or
to have it locked up and be assured that no
one wore it. The mere recollection of that
fixed face, the mere knowledge of its existence
anywhere, was sufficient to awake me in the
night all perspiration and horror, with " O I
know it's coming! O the mask!"

I never wondered what the dear old donkey
with the panniers—there he is!—was made
of, then! His hide was real to the touch, I
recollect. And the great black horse with
round red spots all over him—the horse that I
could even get upon—I never wondered what
had brought him to that strange condition, or
thought that such a horse was not commonly
seen at Newmarket. The four horses of no
colour, next to him, that went into the waggon
of cheeses, and could be taken out and stabled
under the piano, appear to have bits of fur-
tippet for their tails, and other bits for their
manes, and to stand on pegs instead of legs,
but it was not so when they were brought
home for a Christmas present. They were
all right, then; neither was their harness
unceremoniously nailed into their chests, as
appears to be the case now. The tinkling
works of the music-cart, I did find out, to be
made of quill tooth-picks and wire; and I
always thought that little tumbler in his
shirt sleeves, perpetually swarming up one
side of a wooden frame, and coming down,
head foremost, on the other, rather a weak-
minded person—though good-natured; but the
Jacob's Ladder, next him, made of little squares
of red wood, that went flapping and clattering
over one another, each developing a different
picture, and the whole enlivened by small bells,
was a mighty marvel and a great delight.

Ah! The Doll's house!—of which I was
not proprietor, but where I visited. I don't
admire the Houses of Parliament half so
much as that stone-fronted mansion with
real glass windows, and door-steps, and a real
balcony—greener than I ever see now, except
at watering-places; and even they afford but a
pooi- imitation. And though it did open all
at once, the entire house-front (which was a
blow, I admit, as cancelling the fiction of a
staircase), it was but to shut it up again, and
I could believe. Even open, there were
three distinct rooms in it: a sitting-room and
bedroom, elegantly furnished, and, best of all,
a kitchen, with uncommonly soft fire-irons, a
plentiful assortment of diminutive utensils—
oh, the warming-pan!—and a tin man-cook in
profile, who was always going to fry two fish.
What Barmecide justice have I done to the
noble feasts wherein the set of wooden platters
figured, each with its own peculiar delicacy,
as a ham or turkey, glued tight on to it, and
garnished with something green, which I
recollect as moss! Could all the Temperance
Societies of these later days, united, give me
such a tea-drinking as I have had through
the means of yonder little set of blue crockery,
which really would hold liquid (it ran out of
the small wooden cask, I recollect, and tasted
of matches), and which made tea, nectar. And
if the two legs of the ineffectual little sugar-
tongs did tumble over one another, and want
purpose, like Punch's hands, what does it
matter? And if I did once shriek out, as a
poisoned child, and strike the fashionable
company with consternation, by reason of
having drunk a little teaspoon, inadvertently
dissolved in too hot tea, I was never the worse
for it, except by a powder!

Upon the next branches of the tree, lower
down, hard by the green roller and miniature
gardening-tools, how thick the books begin to
hang. Thin books, in themselves, at first, but
many of them, and with deliciously smooth
covers of bright red or green. What fat
black letters to begin with! " A was an
archer, and shot at a frog." Of course he
was. He was an apple-pie also, and there he
is! He was a good many things in his time,
was A, and so were most of his friends,
except X, who had so little versatility, that
I never knew him to get beyond Xerxes or
Xantippe—like Y, who was always confined
to a Yacht or a Yew Tree; and Z condemned
for ever to be a Zebra or a Zany. But, now,
the very tree itself changes, and becomes a
bean-stalk—the marvellous bean-stalk up
which Jack climbed to the Giant's house!
And now, those dreadfully interesting, double-
headed giants, with their clubs over their
shoulders, begin to stride along the boughs in
a perfect throng, dragging knights and ladies
home for dinner by the hair of their heads.
And Jack—how noble, with his sword of
sharpness, and his shoes of swiftness! Again
those old meditations come upon me as I gaze
up at him; and I debate within myself
whether there was more than one Jack
(which I am loth to believe possible), or
only one genuine original admirable Jack, who
achieved all the recorded exploits.