Pragoff did not wish
to make a second sensation by coming back after Prudy and Dotty.

"I never go with Fly but I get mortified," thought Miss Dimple; "and
now, O dear, I shan't hear those Christmas chimes!"

But Prudy was thinking how sorry she was for Mrs. Pragoff and Horace.

They all went into a druggist's, and, after a few minutes spent in the
use of a sponge and water, poor Fly ceased to look like a murdered
victim, but very much like a marble image. When they reached Mrs.
Pragoff's, she was placed on a sofa, and for once in her life lay still.
Horace bent over her with the wildest anxiety, thinking some terrible
crisis was coming. As soon as she felt a little better, she began to
cry. "O, darling, what is it?" said he, glad to see her in motion once
more.

"Cause my Uncle 'Gustus is sick."

"Poh," said Dotty; "crying about that? See! _I_ don't cry."

"Well, you don't love Uncle 'Gustus so hard as I do," said Fly, with
another burst.

Mrs. Pragoff looked on with interest, and tried to remember whether she
had ever heard that children shed tears when they were "coming down"
with scarlet fever. This elegant mansion was a very interesting place to
visit. To say nothing of things which "made a noise," there was no end
of curiosities from the four quarters of the globe; and Mrs. Pragoff was
so truly well-bred that the children soon felt at home. Dotty was deeply
engaged in examining a sea-horse, when Prudy suddenly whispered,--

"Dotty, what did you do last night with those two rings?"

"Rings? What rings?"

Then a look of absolute terror spread over Dotty's face. She remembered
slipping off her auntie's rings when she washed the dishes; but where
had she put them?

"Why, Prudy, I _persume_ I left 'em in--in--where I ought to leave 'em."

"O, I'm glad you did," returned Prudy, quite satisfied, for she was
listening with one ear to the liquid notes of "The Wandering Sprite."

"Why didn't Prudy Parlin ask me before?" thought Dotty, in much
agitation; "and then I could have gone all round and looked to see if
I'd put them in the right place."

[Illustration: "DOTTY DIMPLE, YOU HERE?"]

CHAPTER VIII.

DOTTY'S WINDPIPE.

It mattered little to Dotty, after this, what happened. She cared
nothing about the elegant masters and misses who dropped in to dinner,
though Prudy was too frightened to speak; nothing about the paroquets,
and dried butterflies, and Japanese canoes she pretended to look at;