, and began to sing,--

"Little zephyrs, light and gay,
First to tell us of the spring."

She seemed to float on air. There was not a bit of her body that was not
in motion, from the tuft of hair a-top of her head to the soles of her
twinkling boots. Now here, now there, head nodding, hands waving, feet
flying.

"Encore," cried the delighted hostess. "Please, darling, let us hear
that last verse again."

Mrs. Pragoff was curious to know what sort of jargon she made of the
lines,--

"Where the modest violets grow,
And the fair anemone."

Fly repeated it with an exquisite sweetness which charmed the whole
house:--

"Where the modest _vilets_ grow,
And the _fairy men no more know me_."

"The fairies do all know you, darling." exclaimed Mrs. Pragoff, kissing
her rapturously.

"Your feet are more light than a faery's feet,
Who dances on bubbles where brooklets meet."

"There! Dancing on bubbles!" said Prudy aside to Horace. "That's just
what I always wanted to call it, but never knew how."

On the whole it was a pleasant evening, and Mrs. Pragoff had no reason
to regret having given the little party. Everybody went to bed happy but
Dotty, who could not shut her eyes without seeing the blaze of two
rings, which burned into her brain.

CHAPTER X.

RIDING ON JACK FROST.

Fly slept in a little cot beside her hostess's bed. Mrs. Pragoff, poor
lady, reclined half the night on her elbow, watching the child's
breathing; but, to her inexpressible relief, nothing happened that was
at all alarming. Fly only waked once in the night, and asked in a drowsy
tone, "Have I got a measle?"

But just as Mrs. Pragoff was enjoying a morning nap, a pair of little
feet went pricking over the floor, towards the girls' room, but soon
returned, and a sweet young voice cried,--

"O, Miss Perdigoff, I can't wake up Dotty!"

"Can't wake her, child!"

"No'm, I can't; nor Prudy can't: we can't wake up Dotty."

Mrs. Pragoff roused at once, with a new cause for alarm.

"Why, what does this mean? Did you try hard to wake her?"

"Yes'm; I shaked her."

Mrs. Pragoff now remembered, with terror, that there had been a little
trouble with Dotty's windpipe. Could she have choked to death?

Rising instantly, she threw on her wrapper, and was hurrying across the
passage, when Fly added,--

"'Haps she'll let _you_ wake her; she wouldn't let me 'n' Prudy."

"You little mischief, is that what yo