When dear old Mrs Bram went back to London after (1) ________ with the Hunters, she sent the children a doll’s house. It was so big that it had to be left in the courtyard, and there it stayed on two wooden boxes. (2) ________ could come to it; it was summer. And perhaps the smell of paint would have gone off by the time it had to be taken in. For, really, the smell of paint coming from that doll’s house was quite enough to make anyone (3) ________ ill.

There stood the doll’s house, dark, oily green. Its two solid chimneys, fixed to the roof, were painted red and white, and the floor was yellow. Four windows, real windows, were divided into four again by broad lines of green.

The perfect, perfect little house! Who could possible (4) ________ to the smell? It was part of the joy, part of the newness.

The hook at the side was stuck. Pat opened it with his knife and the whole house front swung back, and – there you were, looking at one and the same moment into the sitting room and dining room, the kitchen and two bedrooms. That is the way for a house to open! Why don’t all houses open like that? How much more exciting than (5) ________ through a half-open door into a little hall! That is – isn’t it – what you want to know about a house when you come to the door!

The best thing in the house was the lamp that stood in the middle of the diningroom table. The lamp was perfect. The lamp was real.

The Hunter children could hardly walk to school (6) ________ enough the next morning. It had been (7) ________ that while the doll’s house stood in the courtyard they could ask the girls at school, two at a time, to come and look.