I

The kaleidoscope. Do you remember looking at the Kaleidoscope? I used to cry about it sometimes at night; thinking of the patterns I had not seen. I thought there was a new pattern every time you shook it, forever. We had a huge one with very small bits of glass. They clicked smoothly when the pattern changed and were very beautifully coloured.⁠ ⁠… Oh and do you remember those things⁠—did you have a little paper theatre ? They were all looking at her, not at the little theatre. She wished she had not mentioned it. It was so sacred and so secret that she had never thought of it or even mentioned it to herself all these years. She rushed on to the stereoscope, her eyes still on the little cardboard stage, hearing the sound of the paper scraping over the little wooden roller as the printed scenes came round backwards or forwards, and plunged into descriptions of deep views of the insides of cathedrals in sharp relief in a clear silver light, mountains, lakes, statuary in clear light out of doors and came back to the dolls, pressing alone wearily on through the dying interest of her hearers to discover with sleepy enthusiasm the wisdom and indifference and independence of Dutch dolls, the charm of their wooden bodies, the reasons why one never wanted to put any clothes on them, the dear kind friendliness of dolls with composition heads⁠—I don’t believe I’ve ever loved anyone in the world as I loved Daisy⁠—Yes, I know⁠—we had one too; it belonged to Eve, it was enormous and had real hair and a leather trunk for its clothes and felt huge and solid when you carried it; but it was as far away from you as a human being⁠—yes, the rag dolls were simply funny⁠—I never understand all that talk about the affection for rag dolls. We used to scream at ours and hold them by the skirts and see which could bang their heads hardest against the wall. They were always like a Punch and Judy show. The composition dolls I mean were painted a soft colour, very roundly moulded heads, with a shape, just a little hair, put on in soft brown colour, and not staring eyes but soft bluey grey with an expression ; looking at something, looking at the same thing you looked at yourself⁠—.⁠ ⁠… Mrs. Philps yawned and Florrie began making a move⁠—I suppose it’s bed time⁠—said Miriam. They were