imself."

A great grizzly bear hugging a young grizzly daughter.

"Who made that _grizzle_?" asked Fly, disgusted.

"God."

"Why did He? I wouldn't!--Miss Perdegoff, which does God love best,
great ugly _grizzles_ or hunkydory little parrots?"

"O, fie!" said Mrs. Pragoff, really shocked; "where did a well-bred
child like you ever hear such a coarse word as that?"

"Hollis says hunkydory," replied Fly, with her finger in her mouth,
while Horace pretended to be absorbed in a monkey.

Mrs. Pragoff turned the subject.

"Tell me, children, which do you consider the most wonderful animal you
have ever seen?"

"The lion," replied Prudy.

"The whale," said Dotty. "Which do you, Mrs. Pragoff?"

"This sort of animal, that _thinks_," replied the lady, touching Dotty's
shoulder: "this shows the most amazing power of all."

"You don't mean to call me an animal," said Dotty, with a slight shade
of resentment in her voice.

"Why, little sister, I just hope you're not a vegetable! Don't you know
we are all animals that breathe?"

"O, are we? Then I don't care," said Dotty, and serenely followed the
others up stairs, "where the dried things were."

Next they went to Wood's Museum, and saw greater wonders still.

The "Sleeping Beauty," dreaming of the Prince, with lips just parted and
breath very gently coming and going. Dotty would not believe at first
that her waxen bosom palpitated by clockwork.

There were distorted mirrors, which Horace held Flyaway up to peep
into, that he might enjoy her bewilderment when she saw her face twisted
into strange shapes.

The Cardiff Giant, which Horace said "you might depend upon was a hoax."

An Egyptian dromedary, which Fly "just knew" had a sore throat; and a
stuffed gorilla in "buffalo coat and leather gloves."

Then they had a lunch at Delmonico's, quite as good, Prudy admitted, "as
what you found in Boston."

After this, to Dotty's dismay, they went to the Academy of Design, and
criticised pictures.

The statue of Eve Horace regarded with some contempt. "No wonder she
didn't know any better than to eat the apple! What do you expect of a
woman with such a small head as that? Look here who do you suppose was
Eve's shoemaker? Cain?"

"Shoemaker? Why, Horace, she's barefoot."

"So she is, now, Dot; but she's worn shoes long enough to cramp her
toes."

"Strange I never noticed that before," said Mrs. Pragoff. "I think the
sculptor ought to know your criticism, Maste