The little girl was rather travel-stained.  Her gloves were somewhat ragged at the tips, from her habit of twitching them so much; and they were also badly soiled with fruit and candy.  Her hair was as smooth as hands could make it; but alas for the “style” hat which had left Portland in triumph!  It had reached Indiana in disgrace.  Its tipsy appearance was due to getting stepped on, and being caught in showers.  Dotty’s neat travelling dress was defaced by six large grease spots.  Where they had come from Dotty could not conjecture, unless “that sick lady with a bottle had spilled some of her cod-oil on it out of a spoon.”

The child had intended to astonish her relatives by her tidy array; but, after all her pains, she had arrived out West in a very sorry plight.

“Now, which side must I look for the house, papa?”

“At your right hand, my dear.  The first thing you will see is the conservatory, and then a stone house.”

“My right hand,” thought Dotty; “that’s east; but which is my right hand?”

She always knew after she had thought a moment.  It was the one which did not have the “shapest thumb;” that is, the misshapen one she had pounded once by mistake, instead of an oilnut.

“O, yes, papa!  See the flowers! the flowers!  And only to think they don’t know who’s coming!  P’rhaps they’re drinking tea, or gone visiting, or something.”

The Cliffords were not at tea.  Grace and Cassy were reading “Our Boys and Girls” in the summer-house, with their heads close together; Horace was in the woods fishing; Mr. Clifford at his office; his wife in her chamber, ruffling a pink cambric frock for wee Katie, rocking as she sewed.

As for Katie, she was marching about the grounds under an old umbrella.  It was only the skeleton of an umbrella—­dry bones, wires, and a crooked handle.  Through the open sides the little one was plainly to be seen; and Mr. Parlin thought she looked like that flower we have in our gardens, which peeps out from a host of little tendrils, and is called the “lady in the bower.”

Hearing a carriage coming, the “lady in the bower” rushed to the gate, flourishing the black bones of the umbrella directly in the horse’s face.

“Dotty has camed!  She has camed!” shouted the little creature, dropping the umbrella, falling over it, springing up again, and running with flying feet to spread the news.

Nobody believed Dotty had “camed;” it seemed an improbable story; but Grace and Cassy had heard the wheels, and they ran through the avenue into the house to make sure it was nobody but one of the neighbors.

“Why, indeed, and indeed, it is Dotty; and if here isn’t Uncle Edward too!” cried Grace, tossing back her curls, and dancing down the front steps.  “Ma, ma, here is Uncle Edward Parlin!”

“I sawed um first!  I sawed um first!” screamed little Flyaway, thrusting the point of the umbrella between Dotty’s feet, and throwing her over.