ke off her own blue
one.

"O, my suz! I never did see!" said Dotty, puffing and tugging in her
efforts to fasten the frock. "My mother must make Prudy's clo'es
bigger'n this; yes, she must. It chokes."

However, by dint of much hard work she succeeded in squeezing her round
little figure into the red merino, and fastening two of the buttons. "O,
hum!" sighed she; "this dress is so tight I shan't grow to-day!"

Dotty had a great admiration for her mother's purple breakfast shawl,
which she now threw over her little shoulders with tremulous delight.
Nono's Sunday bonnet she next laid her naughty hands upon. Very charming
was this bonnet in Dotty's eyes, as it was made of claret-colored silk,
and was all on fire inside with scorching red and yellow flames. It was
so huge and so deep that Dotty's small face under it looked as if it had
got lost in Mammoth Cave.

"Now I've got every single clo'es on me. Guess there won't anybody
think I'm a boy this time," mused she, giving a last glance at the
mirror; "there won't anybody laugh, and say, 'How d'ye do, my fine
little fellow?'"

Very well pleased with herself, Dotty dressed "brother Zip" in Prudy's
water-proof cloak, and they both stole out by the side door, without
being seen. But which way to go Dotty could not tell.

"Where _is_ the-girl-that-has-the-party's house?" thought she, under her
bonnet. "Well, it's by the stone lions, 'most up to the North Pole. Now,
Zippy, if we keep a-goin' we shall get there, and we'll see some girls
out by the door."

Zip wagged his faithful tail, which was quite hidden under the cloak,
and they both trudged on, Dotty's heart quivering with wicked delight.

She happened to go in the right direction, and at last did really reach
the "house by the stone lions." Several young girls were indeed playing
in the yard.

"What little image is that, traveling this way?" cried Florence Eastman,
holding up both hands.

"A beggar child, perhaps," replied Fanny Harlow. "'Sh! 'sh! don't
laugh!"

"I don't see anything but a walking bonnet," tittered one of the girls;
"don't it look like a chaise top? O, look, look! as true as you live,
that thing that's hopping along beside her is a dog!"

The little figure now approached very slowly, its head bent down, its
fingers in its mouth; though the girls saw nothing but a big, drooping
bonnet, a purple shawl, and a pair of tiny feet peeping out from a red
dress.

"I guess she came from Farther Indi