he "red part" she only meant the skin.

Mr. Clifford had one horse, and while Robin Sherwood was going to the
city for another, Mrs. Clifford made ready the lunch.

Happy Dotty walked about, twirling a lock of her front hair, and watched
Katinka cleaning the already nice paint, spilling here and there "little
drops of water, little grains of sand." She also observed the solemn yet
dextrous manner in which Phebe washed the breakfast dishes, and looked
on with peculiar interest as Aunt Maria filled the basket.

First there were custards to be baked in little cups and freckled with
nutmeg, to please Uncle Edward. Then there was a quantity of eggs to be
boiled hard. As Mrs. Clifford dropped these one by one into a kettle of
water, Katie ran to the back door, and cried out to the noisy hens,--

"Stop cacklerin', chickie; we've got 'em."

Then, fearing she had not made herself understood, she added,--

"We've found your _aigs_, chickie; they was ror, but we's goin' to bake
'em."

Dotty was impressed with the beauty of the picnic basket and the
delicacy of the food. Everything she saw was rose-colored to-day.

"O, Aunt 'Ria, I should think you'd like to live out West! Such splendid
fruit cake!"

"I saw Fibby and my mamma make that," said Flyaway, "out o' cindamon and
little clovers."

"Clovers in cake?"

"Not red and white clovers; them little bitter kinds you know," added
the child, with a wry face.

There were four for each carriage. Dotty rode with her father, Mrs.
Clifford, and Katie. Little Flyaway looked at the hired phaeton with
contempt.

"It hasn't any cap on, like my papa's," said she; but she was prevailed
upon to ride in it because her mamma did.

Horace went with his father and the "cup and saucer," as he called Grace
and Cassy. He was in a state of irritation because his idolized Topknot
was in the other carriage.

"You can't separate that cup and saucer," growled he to himself.
"They'll sit and talk privacy, I suppose; and I might have had
Brown-brimmer if it hadn't been for Cassy."

CHAPTER VIII.

GOING NUTTING.

As they drove along "the plank road," farther and farther away
from the city, Dotty saw more clearly than ever the wide difference
between Indiana and Maine.

"Why, papa," said she, "did you ever breathe such a dust? It seems like
snuff."

"It makes us almost as invisible as the 'tarn cap' we read of in German
fairy tales," said Mrs. Clifford, tucking her brown veil u