Collected works > Edinburgh edition, 1894-98 - Works of Robert Louis Stevenson > Volume 21, 1896 - Miscellanies, Volume IV

AN AUTUMN EFFECT
the large one which was kept locked away for great
occasions. And so I had not been very long in the
parlour before the door opened, and in came Miss
Lizzie with two dolls tucked clumsily under her arm.
She was followed by her brother John, a year or so
younger than herself, not simply to play propriety
at our interview, but to show his own two whips in
emulation of his sister's dolls. I did my best to
make myself agreeable to my visitors, showing much
admiration for the dolls and dolls' dresses, and, with
a very serious demeanour, asking many questions
about their age and character. I do not think that
Lizzie distrusted my sincerity, but it was evident
that she was both bewildered and a little contemp-
tuous. Although she was ready herself to treat her
dolls as if they were alive, she seemed to think rather
poorly of any grown person who could fall heartily
into the spirit of the fiction. Sometimes she would
look at me with gravity and a sort of disquietude,
as though she really feared I must be out of my
wits. Sometimes, as when I inquired too particularly
into the question of their names, she laughed at
me so long and heartily that I began to feel almost
embarrassed. But when, in an evil moment, I asked
to be allowed to kiss one of them, she could keep
herself no longer to herself. Clambering down from
the chair on which she sat perched to show me,
Cornelia-like, her jewels, she ran straight out of
the room and into the bar — it was just across the
passage, — and I could hear her telling her mother
in loud tones, but apparently more in sorrow than
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