Dotty was not to be so easily baffled.

“I don’t know myself, Lina Rosenberg, but if you’re so mean as not to tell, I can ask somebody else that will tell—­don’t you see?”

This was a difficulty which Lina had not provided for.  She was very sorry Dotty had come out “to breathe.”

Very soon they overtook a lady, who pointed out the right street to Dotty; and it was in an opposite direction from the one she was taking.

“Now I’ve found out, Miss Rosenberg, and you can’t help yourself.”

“Well, I shall go with you, Dotty, just the same.  I shall go right up to your house, and tell your mother you’ve run away again”

It was very disagreeable to Miss Dimple to be pursued in this way; but she put on an air of defiance.

“I shouldn’t think you’d want to go where you wasn’t wanted, Miss Rosenberg.”

Lina had never intended to do such a thing; she had not courage enough.

“O, dear! what shall I do to make you go back with me?  My mother’ll scold me awfully for letting you get away.”

“Well, there; you’ve got the dreadfulest mother, Lina, and I’m real sorry; but it’s no use to tease me; I wouldn’t go back, not if you should cut me up into little pieces as big as a cent.”

Lina was ready to fall upon her knees, right on the pavement.  She offered Dotty paper dolls enough to people a colony; but Miss Dimple was as firm as a rock, now her face was once set towards home.  Lina turned on her heel, and slowly walked away.  Dotty called after her:—­

“There, Lina, now you’ve told an awful story!  You said you’d go to my house, and tell my mother I’d run away again; and now you don’t dare go; so you’ve told an awful wicked story.”

With this parting thrust at her tormentor, Dotty turned again to the misery of her own thoughts.  Her home was already in sight; but the uncertainty as to her reception there made her little feet falter in their course.  Her head sank lower and lower, till her chin snuggled into the hollow of her neck, and her eyes peered out keenly from under her hat, to make sure no one was watching.  There was a door-yard on one side of the house.  She touched the gate-latch as gently as if it had been a loaded gun, and crept noiselessly along to the side door.  Here she paused.  Her heart throbbed loudly; but, in spite of that, she could hear Norah walking about, and rattling the covers of the stove, as she put in coal.

Dotty’s courage failed.  What if Norah should make believe she didn’t know her, and shut the door in her face?

“I can’t see Norah, and hear her say, ’What strange little girl is this?  It looks like our Alice; but it can’t be any such a child!’ No, I can’t see anybody.  I’ve finished my visit; I have a right to come home; but p’rhaps they won’t think so.  I feel’s if I wasn’t half so good as tea-grounds, or coffee-grounds, or potato-skins,” continued she, with a pang of despair.  “I know what I’ll do; I’ll go down cellar; that’s where the rats stay; and if I am bad, I hope I’m as good as a rat, for I don’t bite.”