“How queer it is!” thought she; “it seems as if the sun grows sleepy very early nowadays, and goes to bed right in the middle of the afternoon.  Well, I declare, if there isn’t Lina Rosenberg!”

The beautiful little Jewess was just turning an opposite corner, and, as usual, the sight of her face bewitched Dotty in a minute.

[Illustration:  LINA ROSENBERG INVITES DOTTY TO HER HOUSE.]

“O, Lina Rosenberg, come over here!  How do you do?”

“I’m very well, Dotty:  how do YOU do?  Only I wish you wouldn’t call me a BUG!”

“Well, then, Lina, you mustn’t have bugs in your name if you don’t want to be called by ’em.  Did you know I’d been Out West?”

“No; you haven’t, Dotty Dimple!”

“Yes, I have; you may ask my father.  I kept my own ticket right in my glove, and took ’most the whole care of myself.  Went to the Blind ’Sylum; found a pearl in an oyster; been ’way down in a coal mine; and—­and—­”

“Come to my house, won’t you, and tell me all about it?” said Lina Rosenberg, looking as beguiling as possible, and taking Dotty’s unresisting hand.

Dotty knew very well that her mother would never allow her to go to Lina’s house; but she did not like to say that, and she only replied,—­

“I’ve matched my worsteds, and now I must go home.”

“O, you can go home afterwards.  My mother said to me to-day, ’Do you bring Dotty Dimple home to supper this very night.  She’ll be so glad to see you!’”

Dotty gave another glance at the sky, then one at the city clock.

“What time do you drink tea, Lina?”

“At five, ’most always.”

Dotty had long felt a great curiosity about the domestic affairs of the Jews; and here was an unexpected opportunity to sit down at the very table with them.  She had an invitation from the head of the family, and that was something which did not happen every day.  She could go home any time afterwards; for their own tea-hour was not till half past six.

“I’ll walk along with you a little way, Lina, and think it over.”

It was true Mrs. Parlin did not approve of Mandoline or any of her family; but Dotty thought she would forget that, just for once.

“O, dear!  I keep thinking how my mamma said, ’I do not wish you to play with Lina Rosenberg!’ Now I can ’most always forget easy enough; but when I TRY to forget, it says itself over and over—­and I remember just as hard!”

As they turned another corner they met Susy, who had been sent to the dye-house.

“Why, Dotty,” said she, “what are you doing on that street?”

Lina spoke up very boldly,—­

“She’s going to the doctor’s with me, Susy Parlin, to get a plaster for my mother.”

At this wicked speech Dotty’s heart almost sank into her boots; for she had never known before that Lina would tell a deliberate lie.

Lina lived in a little grocery store.  Her father was gone away to-day,> and her mother had just served a customer with a pound of damp brown sugar, saying, as she clipped the string,—­