I shall be obliged to
give it up for the present. Have the child's mother come with her
to-morrow, and we'll do better, I am sure."

With the likenesses of the other girls he succeeded very well; and
Prudy and Dotty were glad to find, that after paying for theirs, they
each had ten cents left.

"Now, Fly, we will go to aunt Martha's."

But Fly was amusing herself by scraping dirt out of the cracks of her
boots with a bit of glass.

"Dotty won't be to aunt Marfie's. I don't want to stay where Dotty
isn't."

"But your mamma will be there, you know; and I told you what they are
going to have for dinner."

"Yes, _secretary_," said Flyaway, proud of her memory. "She is a very
nice _cooker_, but you'll have hard work to get me to go."

She drawled out the words languidly, and seemed on the point of going
to sleep.

"O, girls, girls, girls," cried Prudy, opening the door and looking
out, "our wheelbarrow is gone--it's gone!"

"It's bugglers; I told you so," said Dotty.

Mr. Poindexter was quite amused by his little sitters. "I saw that you
came in a coach," said he, "and without any horses."

"Our grandmother said we might," spoke up Dotty, anxious to divert all
blame from herself. "She said we might; but Prudy ought to have gone
straight home. I knew it all the time."

"I dare say some one has driven off your carriage in sport," said the
kind-hearted photographer; "never fear."

"O, no, sir; it was new and red. Folks wanted it to haul stones in,
and that was why they took it," said Dotty, wrathfully.

The children looked up street and down street. No wheelbarrow in
sight. "We must go to aunt Martha's, and then come back and hunt for
it, if we have to go without our dinners," they said. They took
Flyaway between them, and marched her off. She was almost as passive
as a rag baby, ready to drop down anywhere, and fall asleep. "'Cause I
_am_ so tired," said she.

Aunt Martha cordially invited the two cousins to dine. They thanked
her, but no, they must find the wheelbarrow. "We shan't say, certain
positive, that bugglers took it, but we s'pose so," said Dotty,
softening her judgment, as she remembered her mistake about the
"screw-up pencil." They went home through the broiling sun, but found
no trace of the wheelbarrow.

"It's a dreadful thing," said Prudy, lazily, "but I don't feel as bad
as I should if I was fairly awake."

"Me, too," yawned Dotty; "I wish we could lie down under the trees,
and go to sle