hild, than to have such goings on!"

"What is the matter, father?" asked Mrs. Whitney, coming up the stairs,
after him. "What has happened out of the way?"

"Out of the way!" roared the old gentleman, irascibly, "well, if you
want Phronsie racing off to the Post Office by herself, and nearly
getting killed, poor child! yes, Marian, I say nearly killed!" he
continued.

"What do you mean?" gasped Mrs. Whitney.

"Why, where have you been?" asked the old gentleman, who wouldn't let
Phronsie get down out of his arms, under any circumstances; so there she
lay, poking up her head like a little bird, and trying to say she wasn't
in the least hurt, "where's everybody been not to know she'd gone?" he
exclaimed, "where's Polly--and Jasper--and all of 'em?"

"Polly's taking her music lesson," said Mrs. Whitney. "Oh, Phronsie
darling!" and she bent over the child in her father's arms, and nearly
smothered her with kisses.

"Twas a naughty horse," said Phronsie, sitting up straight and looking
at her, "or I should have found the Post Office; and I lost off my
bonnet, too," she added, for the first time realizing her loss, putting
her hand to her head; "a bad old woman knocked it off with a basket--and
now mamsie won't get her letter!" and she waved the bit, which she still
grasped firmly between her thumb and finger, sadly towards Mrs. Whitney.

"Oh, dear," groaned that lady, "how could we talk before her! But who
would have thought it! Darling," and she took the little girl from her
father's arms, who at last let her go, "don't think of your mamma's
letter; we'll tell her how it was," and she sat down in the first chair
that she could reach; while Phronsie put her tumbled little head down on
the kind shoulder and gave a weary little sigh.

"It was so long," she said, "and my shoes hurt," and she thrust out the
dusty little boots, that spoke pathetically of the long and unaccustomed
tramp.

"Poor little lamb!" said Mr. King, getting down to unbutton them. "What
a shame!" he mumbled pulling off half of the buttons in his frantic
endeavors to get them off quickly.

But Phronsie never heard the last of his observations, for in a minute
she was fast asleep. The tangled hair fell off from the tired little
face; the breathing came peaceful and regular, and with her little hand
fast clasped in Mrs. Whitney's she slept on and on.

Polly came flying up-stairs, two or three at a time, and humming a scrap
of her last piece that she