Free The Lotus House by Katharine Moore

to go.”
    “You’ll probably get a splendid tea,” said Andrew, “Mrs S. did us proud at her party.”
    Harriet did not reply.
    “Don’t sulk,” said Margot, “it’s not as if you get that many invitations to tea. It’s about time that you made some little friends at school, isn’t it, then you could ask them here and get asked back in return. Meanwhile, of course you must go to Mrs Sanderson’s, and when you go, please try and look as though you want to see her doll’s house.”
    So soon after four o’clock, having come back from school and changed from her brown jersey and skirt into her blue velveteen, Harriet knocked on Mrs Sanderson’s sitting-room door.
    “We’ll see the doll’s house first, I think,” said Mrs Sanderson. “I keep it in my bedroom.”
    Mrs Sanderson’s bedroom looked immense to Harriet — it would have held six of her own little room easily, and at first she didn’t see the doll’s house, which stood in an alcove which had once held a carving table.
    “Here it is,” said Mrs Sanderson and stood aside.
    “Oh!” exclaimed Harriet, “Oh, but it isn’t a doll’s house, it’s a real house. Why, it’s this house got little.”
    “Yes,” said Letty, “it’s a little Lotus House, and it was made like that cleverly by two nice boys who used to live here once. I’ll open it for you so that you can see inside.”
    Harriet eagerly knelt down in front of it, just as Selina had done long ago on that memorable birthday.
    “It’s got real furniture in it,” she said, “real proper furniture, and pictures on the walls and pots and pans in the kitchen and bedclothes and curtains and little books, and there’s people in it!”
    “Of course,” said Letty, “what did you expect?”
    Harriet certainly had not expected anything like this.The silly tiny toy doll’s house at Queensmead hadn’t any people in it, and only broken bits of plastic tables and chairs. She looked up at Letty and her small dark eyes, so extremely unlike her mother’s, were unusually bright and shining.
    “May I take the people out and look at them?”
    “Yes, if you’re careful,” said Letty.
    “There’s a father and a mother and a little girl!” cried Harriet.
    “That’s Mr and Mrs Golightly and their daughter Wilhelmina Rose — aren’t those nice names?”
    “No,” said Harriet, “they’re silly names, I think.”
    Letty was taken aback and would have felt ridiculously annoyed had she not immediately told herself that this was absurd. It was, of course, for that other child that she felt momentarily hurt, the child who long ago had invented those odd, old, dear names — yet nothing now could touch that child, so why worry?
    “What ought they to be called then, do you think?” she asked.
    “ I know,” said Harriet. She had known at once but she was not going to tell. “I can see more people, there’s an old man in bed — what’s he in bed for?”
    So then Letty recounted Selina’s story of the famous railway disaster. “It happened at the bottom of this very garden,” she said.
    “It couldn’t have,” said Harriet, “there’s houses there.”
    Letty explained patiently that the garden used to go right down to the railway; “There was an orchard and a vegetable garden where all the houses are now.”
    “Oh,” said Harriet, not very interested, “well, I don’t think there was a railway accident, I think he just didn’t have any legs ever. Who’s that lady in the kitchen? What funny clothes!”
    “She’s the cook, she’s got a cap and an apron on, all cooks used to wear them.”
    But Harriet didn’t know about cooks. “Is Miss Cook a relation? She’s very like her.”
    “So she is,” agreed Letty. “Now shall we go and have our tea, perhaps you could toast some buns?”
    “Yes, I could,” said Harriet, getting up slowly from her knees, “but may I come back afterwards?”
    “Indeed you may,” said Letty, “and if you promise me always to be very