er bags overhead
seemed to rattle, and some yellow pollen dropped out of one of them like
shooting stars.

Dotty had never known that there are such cruel people in the world; but
let me tell you, little reader, every mother is not like the gentle,
low-voiced woman who takes you in her lap, and kindly reproves you when
you have done wrong. No; there are very different mothers; hard-working,
ignorant ones, who do not know how to treat their children any more than
you know how to build a brick house.

Mrs. Rosenberg was so severe and unreasonable, that her little daughter,
through fear of her, had learned to deceive. Still Mrs. Rosenberg loved
Mandoline, and would have been a better mother, perhaps, if she had only
known how, and had not had so much work to do.

Presently she went down stairs, and left the little girls together.

"Good!" said Lina, in a low voice. "She's gone; now we'll play."

"But you can't knit if you play, Lina. Tell me where you hided my hat,
'cause I want to go home."

"You shan't go home till after supper, you little darling Dotty Dimple."

"O, but I must go, for my mother doesn't know where I am," said Dotty, in
a dreary tone. She had no longer any curiosity regarding Jewish suppers;
all she wanted was the liberty to get away. But it is always easier to
fall into a trap than to get out of it. Mandoline would not produce the
missing hat, and it was no light matter for Dotty to go down stairs,
among the noisy, quarrelsome children, and beg the severe Mrs. Rosenberg
to take her part. If she did so, perhaps the woman would pelt her with
the steel thimble. Perhaps, too, she would say Mandoline might keep the
hat. So Dotty played "synagogue," and all the while the sun was dropping
down, down the sky, as if it had a leaden weight attached to it, to make
it go faster.

CHAPTER VI.

A STRANGE VISIT.

The same warfare of words continued to come up from the kitchen, and
presently the odor of sausages stole up, too; Mrs. Rosenberg was
preparing supper. It seemed to the impatient Dotty that she was a long
while about it; but she worked as fast as she could, with so many
children clinging to her skirts, and impeding her movements.

"Supper, Mandoline!" called she at last, in a shrill voice; and the
little girls went down.

The supper was palatable enough, but very unwholesome, and the
table-cloth was dirty and wrinkled.

"You don't seem to like my cooking," said Mrs. Rosenberg, with a
d