"What are you doing, Lottie?" I asked, walking toward her.
She looked round with a fine show of innocence, although her eyes twinkled suspiciously.
"Oh! it's you, Miss Hyde," she said, in no wise confused, rising from her knees with great deliberation and majesty.
"Yes, it is I. And what brings you here?" I inquired.
"There's several things I might have been doing," she answered, walking on by my side; "picking flowers, or saying my prayers, or—"
"Well—what else?"
"Oh! anything you please; poetry people ought to be able to guess."
"Lottie! Lottie!"
"There—I won't say a word more! I'm dumb as Miss Jessie's canary in moulting-time."
"Then, perhaps, you will manage to find voice enough to tell me where you have been?"