were away from the Burnells' home.

Presently our Else nudged up close to her sister. But now she had forgotten the cross lady. She put out a finger and stroked her sister’s quill; she smiled her rare smile. “I seen the little lamp,” she said, softly.

Kezia really wanted the Kelveys to see the doll house and although she was not allowed to talk to them, she eventually asked them over against her parents orders. Lil tried to resist because she understood the Burnells were not to associate with the Kelveys, who came from a tough background. Else on the other hand wanted to see the house and so she coerced her sister to accept the offer. Kezia led them to the courtyard where the doll house was placed and opened up the front so the two girls could have a glimpse of the interior.

The duo-protagonists in Katherine Mansfield's The Doll's House are sisters—Lil and Else Kelvey:

They were the daughters of a spry, hardworking little washerwoman, who went about from house to house by the day.

As for the girls' father, the rumor that had spread through the overly class-conscious residents of the New Zealand town where the girls lived was that he was in prison for some unknown misdeeds.

This was one of the reasons, aside from the fact that their family was the poorest family in town, that the sisters were shunned by other children, some of whom were ordered by their parents not to speak to them:

Even the teacher had a special voice for them, and a special smile for the other children when Lil Kelvey came up to her desk with a bunch of dreadfully common-looking flowers.

Lil is the older of the two sisters. She's more aware, sometimes painfully so, of the social distinctions in the community than is her little sister, Else. She's very protective of Else and does her best to shield her from the rude, taunting, and insulting behavior of the other children, to which Lil invariably responds with "her silly, shamefaced smile."

Lil is described in the story as "a stout, plain child, with big freckles." The clothes she wears to school, like the clothes of her sister, Else, are hand-me-downs and other clothing which their mother had collected from the homes she cleans.

Lil therefore:

came to school in a dress made from a green art-serge table-cloth of the Burnells', with red plush sleeves from the Logans' curtains. Her hat, perched on top of her high forehead, was a grown-up woman's hat, once the property of Miss Lecky, the postmistress.

Lil's little sister, Else, is extremely shy and withdrawn. She rarely speaks and even more rarely smiles. Most of the time, she hides behind Lil, holding tightly to her dress, "with a piece of Lil's skirt screwed up in her hand," and communicates with Lil solely with her eyes.

The narrator describes Else as:

a tiny wishbone of a child, with cropped hair and enormous solemn eyes—a little white owl.

Else also wears second-hand clothes, including "a long white dress, rather like a nightgown, and a pair of little boy's boots."

The sisters are well aware of the hierarchy of the children at school, and they "know their place" in the community.

Else, although the younger sister, turns out to be the braver, more adventurous of the two, who encourages Lil, "with imploring eyes," to go into the Burrell's courtyard to see Kezia's new doll house.

Far from being shamed by Kezia's Aunt Beryl when she ordered the sisters out of the courtyard, Else forgot all about the incident, smiled, and said softly to Lil, "I seen the little lamp."