rl prone upon the floor.
"What is the matter? Why have you taken off your frock?"

"Oh! auntie," sobbed Florence, "please let me go home; indeed, I can't
stay."

"Are you homesick?" asked her aunt, as she took her up on her lap, and
pushed back the damp hair from her face. "Poor little girl!"

A fresh burst of tears was the only answer.

"Where is Dimple?" asked Mrs. Dallas.

But Florence only cried the harder, and her aunt was forced to put her
down with an uncomfortable sense of there being something wrong. She
went directly up to the attic, but it was silent. Dimple was not there,
neither was Bubbles, and no amount of search revealed them. She went
back to Florence, who dried her tears and unburdened her heart, and then
in her turn became alarmed about Dimple, since no amount of hunting
disclosed her whereabouts.

Mrs. Dallas was, herself, becoming much worried, when the door slowly
opened and a disheveled little figure stood before them, with soaking
garments and sodden shoes.

For a moment Dimple stood, then ran forward and buried her head in her
mother's lap.

"Mamma," she sobbed, "it was all on account of the weather. I coaxed
Florence out to the hogshead, and then we got wet, and didn't know how
to get out of it, and we went up into the attic, and I felt naughty all
the time, and we got mad, and oh dear! I wish the sun would shine."

"I am afraid from all I hear, that you have been the one to set all this
mischief astir," said her mother. "I thought I could trust my little
girl. Think, Dimple, what a day's work. You have tempted your cousin to
do wrong, first by going out in the wet, and again by meddling with the
clothing upstairs; then you hurt her feelings, and quarreled with her,
and now you blame the weather for it all, besides setting a bad example
to Bubbles. Where have you been, my child?"

"Trying to find Florence, mamma. I walked and walked, and I was so
worried, and--oh, mamma, I thought all sorts of dreadful things. I went
to the station, Florence, and I found out there that you hadn't really
gone home; then I thought you were lost, or that the cars had run over
you, or the gypsies had stolen you, or that--oh I'm so miserable," she
caught her breath, and shivered with cold and excitement.

Her mother was unfastening her wet garments. She felt that Dimple's
naughtiness had brought its own punishment. "I think Florence has
changed her mind about going home," she said, quietly.

Dimple ra