and screamed, and declared she "would be good, she would be a comfort;" but her mother was firm, though her sweet temper never for a moment forsook her. Susy and Prudy looked on, and learned a lesson in patience which was worth twenty lectures.

Percy Eastman was as glad to carry his spirited little cousin back as he had been to bring her to his house. Mrs. Parlin rode too; but Susy and Prudy walked.

When they came to the tree which contained the birds' nest, Prudy parted the branches, but the nestlings were not to be seen; the mother-bird had gathered them under her wings, out of sight.

"Hush!" whispered Susy; "hear them peep! Let's go; we'll frighten the old birdie out of her wits."

"I wish you could see them, Susy; then you'd know how cunning they are; and now you never'll know. But it doesn't seem a bit like orphan children since their mother's got home."

"Makes me think of our mamma, and her three little children," said Susy, taking her sister's hand.

"Yes," said Prudy, her face radiant with a glow of love, warm from her heart; "how good our mother always is, and always was, before ever our reasons grew! Think what we'd do this night, Susy Parlin, if there wasn't any mother to our house!"

CHAPTER V.

FANNY HARLOW'S PARTY.

"Kiss me, little sister," said Prudy, "and let me go, for I must get ready for the party."

"I know where you're goin'," said Dotty; "why can't I go too?"

Little did innocent Prudy dream of the queer thoughts which were chasing one another in her little sister's brain. After she and Susy had gone, and the house was quite still, Dotty stood at the window, looking down street. It was a lovely day; the clouds were "softer than sleep."

"O, my suz!" said Dotty Dimple; "there they go, way off, way off, Susy and Prudy. Bof of 'em are all gone. Nobody at home but me. Didn't ask me to her party, Fanny Harlow didn't."

Dotty heaved a deep sigh, took her black baby out of its cradle, and shook it with all her might.

"What you lookin' to me for, Phib? I wasn't a 'peakin' to you. I'm goin' to cover you all up, Phib, so you won't hear me think."

Then Dotty looked out of the window again. "What a good little girl I am," thought she, "not to be a cryin'! Prudy'd cry! There goes the blacksmif's shop." Dotty meant the blacksmith. "His mother lets him go everywhere. Everybody's mother lets 'em go everywhere."

A prettily dressed little girl passed the window.

"How do you do, little girl?" whispered Dotty, in a voice so low that even the cat did not hear. "O, what a booful hat you've got! Would your mamma make you wear a rainy dress, like mine? No, she wouldn't. Your mamma lets you go to parties all the days only Sundays. My mamma has sticked me into the nursery, and nothin' but a dar'needle to sew with! O, hum! And I haven't runned away since forever'n ever! They don't 'low me to run away. Wish Fanny Harlow'd asked me to her party. I know why she never! 'Cause she forgot I was born."

Presently there was a sound of little feet. Dotty was pattering up stairs.

"Didn't know I was sewing with a dar'needle—did you, mamma? Mayn't I go to Fanny Harlow's party?"

Mrs. Parlin was busy with visitors, and did not pay much heed to her little daughter. So Dotty crept close to her mother's side, and buried her roguish face behind her head-dress.

"Wish you'd please to punish me, mamma," said she; "punish me now; I'm a-goin' to be naughty?"

Mrs. Parlin smiled, and reminded Dotty that it was not polite to whisper in company. Then she went on talking with her friends, and Miss Dimple slipped quietly out of the room.

"I know I don't ought to," mused the child; "I'm a-goin' to do wicked, and get punished; but I want to do wicked, and get punished. I've been goody till I'm all tired up!"

Having made this decision, she went to Prudy's closet, and looked at the dresses hanging wrong side outward on the pegs.

"This is a booful one," said she, pulling down a scarlet merino. She put on the dress, forgetting, in her guilty haste, to take off her own blue one.

"O, my suz! I never did see!" said Dotty, puffing and tugging in her efforts to fasten the frock. "My mother must make Prudy's clo'es bigger'n this; yes, she must. It chokes."

However, by dint of much hard work she succeeded in squeezing her round little figure into the red merino, and fastening two of the buttons. "O, hum!" sighed she; "this dress is so tight I shan't grow to-day!"

Dotty had a great admiration for her mother's purple breakfast shawl, which she now threw over her little shoulders with tremulous delight. Nono's Sunday bonnet she next laid her naughty hands upon. Very charming was this bonnet in Dotty's eyes, as it was made of claret-colored silk, and was all on fire inside with scorching red and yellow flames. It was so huge and so deep that Dotty's small face under it looked as if it had got lost in Mammoth Cave.

"Now I've got every single clo'es on me. Guess there won't anybody think I'm a boy this time," mused she, giving a last glance at the mirror; "there won't anybody laugh, and say, 'How d'ye do, my fine little fellow?'"

Very well pleased with herself, Dotty dressed "brother Zip" in Prudy's water-proof cloak, and they both stole out by the side door, without being seen. But which way to go Dotty could not tell.

"Where is the-girl-that-has-the-party's house?" thought she, under her bonnet. "Well, it's by the stone lions, 'most up to the North Pole. Now, Zippy, if we keep a-goin' we shall get there, and we'll see some girls out by the door."

Zip wagged his faithful tail, which was quite hidden under the cloak, and they both trudged on, Dotty's heart quivering with wicked delight.

She happened to go in the right direction, and at last did really reach the "house by the stone lions." Several young girls were indeed playing in the yard.

"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