Welcome to Litsy!

�She saw: first, a square opening, about eight inches wide, in the lowest step�finally she saw that there was a walnut shell, or half one, outside the nearest door�she went to look at the shell�but looked with the greatest astonishment. There was a baby in it.� So ten-year-old Maria, orphaned mistress of Malplaquet, discovers the secret of her deteriorating estate: on a deserted island at its far corner, in the temple long ago nicknamed Mistress Masham�s Repose, live an entire community of people��The People,� as they call themselves�all only inches tall. With the help of her only friend�the absurdly erudite Professor�Maria soon learns that this settlement is no less than the kingdom of Lilliput (first seen in Gulliver�s Travels) in exile. Safely hidden for centuries, the Lilliputians are at first endangered by Maria�s well-meaning but clumsy attempts to make their lives easier, but their situation grows truly ominous when they are discovered by Maria�s greedy guardians, who look at The People and see only a bundle of money.