“What little image is that, traveling this way?” cried Florence Eastman, holding up both hands.

“A beggar child, perhaps,” replied Fanny Harlow. “’Sh! ’sh! don’t laugh!”

“I don’t see anything but a walking bonnet,” tittered one of the girls; “don’t it look like a chaise top?  O, look, look! as true as you live, that thing that’s hopping along beside her is a dog!”

The little figure now approached very slowly, its head bent down, its fingers in its mouth; though the girls saw nothing but a big, drooping bonnet, a purple shawl, and a pair of tiny feet peeping out from a red dress.

“I guess she came from Farther India,” suggested Susy, that being the most foreign land she could think of.

Dotty now gave a loud knock at the gate, and peeped in between the bars.  In doing so she had to push back the chaise-top, and the little girls had a full view of her face.

“O, Dotty Dimple Parlin!” screamed her sisters, in dismay.

Fanny Harlow hastened to open the gate.

“Where did you come from, you naughty thing?” whispered Susy, with a crimson face.

Dotty’s sole answer was a violent sneeze, which burst off two buttons, the only ones which fastened the scarlet merino.

“I’ve broke my dress,” said Dotty, calmly.

The little girls were greatly amused, but Dotty eyed them with such a gaze of lofty disdain that they kept their faces as straight as possible.

“Poor thing,” said cousin Florence; “how tired you must be!  Don’t you want to sit right down in this iron chair?”

Dotty’s bright eyes flashed.  “Don’t you pity me, Flossy!  Now ’top it!”

“How shall we ever get her home?” thought the two older sisters, in alarm; for they saw by the motion of Dotty’s elbows, that she had made up her mind to queen it over the whole company.

“Look here, Dotty,” said Prudy, going up to her, and kissing her; “did mother say you might come, darling?”

Dotty rubbed off the kiss, and made no answer.

“Don’t you think ’twould be a nice plan,” whispered Prudy, “for me and Susy to draw you home in a little carriage?  And I’ll ask mother to forgive you.”

“O, yes,” said Susy, in an agony of mortification; “now do!”

Dotty looked as unmoved as one of the stone lions, and took no notice of the request.

“What made they put two trees ’side that one tree?” asked she, by way of changing the subject.

“Now, Dotty, you will go, that’s a little love,” said Susy, wringing her hands.  “Only think, if you don’t you’ll lose five kisses to-night, and I dare say mamma will punish you, too.”

“There’s a man goin’ by—­old all over, and a white whisker.  Who is it?” inquired Dotty, changing the subject again.  “The whisker looks like snow, ’s if his chin’s cold!”

“Never mind the man,” returned Prudy.  “If you’ll go I’ll spend my five cents, and buy you some pep’mints.”