“I am sure you will grow up, one of these days, to be a very good woman,” continued Major Lazelle, looking with an admiring smile at the graceful little girl seated on his knee.  “You tell me you have never been at school.  I hope you do not mean to frolic all your life?  What were little girls made for, do you think?”

Dotty reflected a moment.

“What are little girls made for, sir?  Why, they are made to play, ’cause they can’t play when they grow to be ladies.”

The major laughed.

“Pretty well said!  You’re rather too shrewd for such an ‘old mustache’ as I. So little girls are made to play?  Then suppose we two have a game.  Let us play chip-chop.”

Dotty was becoming sleepy, but aroused herself, and patted her little soft hands as hard as she could, tossing them hither and thither, sometimes hitting her companion’s thumb, sometimes his little finger.  Major Lazelle laughed, and then she laughed too; for when he tried to strike her hands, he said it was like aiming at a pair of rose-leaves fluttering in the air.

The chip-chop was a complete failure; but it had set them both in great glee.  If truth be told, they became excessively rude.

“Now, sir,” said Dotty, as they ran across the room, playing a game of romps, “if you do catch me again, I’ll—­O, dear, I don’t know what I’ll do!”

Mr. Parlin looked up from his letter a little annoyed, for the floor was shaking so that he could scarcely write.

“Do not be rude, my daughter,” said he, though he knew very well the major was really the one to be chided.

But his warning came a minute too late.  Major Lazelle had caught Dotty, and she had thrown up both hands to clutch at his hair.  She meant to give it one desperate pulling; she did not care if she hurt him a little; she even hoped he might cry out and beg her to stop.

But the oddest thing happened.  If she had gone to bed at the usual time, and fallen asleep, then this would have been her dream.  But no, she supposed she was awake; and what now?

As she seizes two locks of Major Lazelle’s hair, one in each hand, and pulled them both as if she meant to draw them out by the roots, out they came!  Yes, entirely out!  And more than that, all the rest of the man’s hair came too!  His head was left as smooth as an apple.

You see at once how it was.  He wore a wig, and just for play had slyly unfastened it, and allowed Miss Dotty to pull it off.

The perfect despair on her little face amused him vastly; but he did not smile; he looked very severe.

“See what you have done!” said he, rubbing his bald head as if it were just ready to bleed.  “See what you have done to me, you cruel girl!”

Major Lazelle’s entire head of hair lay at her feet as brown and wavy as ever it was.  Dotty looked at it with horror.  The idea of scalping a man!

For a whole minute she lost the power of speech.  Then she gasped out,—­