There
were walking dolls and talking dolls and dolls who could suck real
milk out of real bottles into tin-lined stomachs. Some exquisitely
gowned porcelain Parisiennes, with eyelashes and long hair cut from
the heads of penniless children, were almost as big and as
aristocratic as their potential millionaire mistresses. Humbler
sisters of middle class combined prettiness with cheapness, and had
the satisfaction of showing their own price marks.
These delicate creatures, lovely in pale-tinted robes or forlorn in
chemises, were the bright spots in the vast, dark department, shining
out through the dusk as stars shine through thin clouds. As Win became
one of the band of shadows, under Sadie's direction, gradually she
grew accustomed to the gloom, and her gaze called many of the strange
objects forth into life.
She found long-haired Shetland ponies big enough to ride, glorified
hobby horses clad in real skins, and unglorified ones with nostrils
like those of her landlady in Columbus Avenue. Biscuit-coloured Jersey
cows, which could be milked, gazed mildly into space with expensive
glass eyes. Noah's arks, big enough to be lived in if the animals
would move up, seemed to have been painted with Bakst colours.
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