y crossed the narrow street.

Dora took a silent farewell of her dear father, weeping all the time but
making no disturbance. Only when she again reached her little bed-room,
did she at last give way to her sobs without restraint, for she knew that
soon her good father would be carried away, and that she could never,
never see him again on earth.

And now began a new order of life for Dora. She had not been to school,
during the short time that she and her father had lived together in
Karlsruhe. Her father went over with her the lessons she had learned in
Hamburg, but he did not seem to care to begin any new study, preferring to
leave everything for her aunt to arrange.

It happened that one of Aunt Ninette's friends was the teacher of a
private school for girls, so that it was soon settled that Dora was to go
to her every morning to learn what she could. Also a seamstress was
engaged to teach her the art of shirt-making in the afternoon, for it was
a theory of Aunt Ninette's that the construction of shirts of all kinds
was a most useful branch of knowledge, and she proposed that Dora should
learn this art, with a view of being able to support herself with her
needle. She argued that since the shirt is the first garment to be put on
in dressing, it should be the first that one should learn to make, and
with this as a foundation, Dora could go on through the whole art of
sewing, till in time she might even arrive at the mighty feat of making
dresses! With which achievement Aunt Ninette would feel more than
satisfied, but this great end would never be reached, unless the first
steps were taken in the right direction.

So every morning Dora sat on the school-bench studying diligently, and
every afternoon on a little chair close to the seamstress' knee, sewing on
a big shirt that made her very warm and uncomfortable.

The mornings were not unpleasant; for she was in the company of other
children who were all studying, and Dora was ambitious and willing to
learn. So the hours flew quickly, for she was too busy to dwell much on
the loss of her dear father, and to think that he was gone forever. But
the afternoons were truly dreadful. She must sit through the long hot
hours, close by the seamstress, almost smothered by the big piece of
cotton cloth, which her little fingers could hardly manage, and she grew
restless and irritable, for her hands were moist, and the needle refused
to be driven through the thick cloth. How of