"I don't think there can be any children," said Belinda as she and her cousin Nona watched the builders and decorators making The House Next Door new again. Marble fireplaces, new floors, spotless paintwork and wallpapers, new paved walks, turf, and flower beds made it the grandest house the children had ever seen. "Just imagine if you left finger marks on that white paint—suppose a ball went into those shrubs. I don't think there can be any children."

But there was a child, Gem Tiffany Jones, just Nona's age—and what is more, she had a Japanese doll like Nona's beautiful Miss Happiness and Miss Flower but smaller and cosier. The three girls should have played happily together, with Nona's wonderful Japanese dolls' house; but they just didn't. Belinda was too rough, said Gem's aunt. Gem was too stuck-up, retorted Belinda. And soon their resentment turned into taunts and taunts into a real feud, with Gem's neglect of her Little Plum as the chief bone of contention.

But in time it was the tiny doll herself who helped resolve the conflict and brought the children into happy friendship in the most satisfying part of this thoroughly captivating story.

From the dust jacket