Ah, if I could only have shown you Mamma's pretty room! But there
is a great hole in the floor now, and the ceiling is all tumbling
down, and the table broken."

"But why do you stay here?"

"Mamma and Emily say it is all the same. We are as safe in our
cellar as we could be anywhere, and we should have to pay elsewhere."

"Then you cannot get out of Paris?"

"Oh no, while the Prussians are all around us, and shut us in. My
brothers are all in the Garde Mobile, and, you see, so is my doll.
Every one must be a soldier, now. My dear Adolphe, hold yourself
straight." (And there the doll certainly showed himself perfectly
drilled and disciplined.) "March--right foot forward--left foot
forward." But in this movement, as may be well supposed, little
Coralie had to help her recruit a good deal.

Lucy was surprised. "So you can play even in this dreadful place?"
she said.

"Oh yes! What's the use of crying and wearying one's self? I do
not mind as long as they leave me my kitten, my dear little Minette."

"Oh! what a pretty, long-haired kitten! But how small and thin!"

"Yes, truly, the poor Minette! The cruel people ate her mother, and
there is no milk--no milk, and my poor Minette is almost starved,
though I give her bits of my bread and soup; but the bread is only