"Look! you have the same bit of ribbon; pull it!"
Dorothy did as she was told, and, to her delight, the net was raised in a pretty festoon.
"Isn't it funny?" she said; "what can the curtains be for? Are they just for prettiness?"
"No, for use; they are mosquito curtains; and I remember some very like them in India."
"What are mosquitoes?"
"Little gnats, very, very thin and small, but they sting dreadfully, and especially at night, and make big bumps on your forehead, and the curtains shut them out. I should like to get up now," Irene said; "for I ought to go to grannie."
"Oh, I don't want you to go to your grannie; you must stay with me."
"I don't think that would do," Irene said, "for father wished me to live with grannie and the cousins."
"I'm so sorry," Dorothy exclaimed, "for I know I shan't like the cousins. I think—I really do—you are the only playmate I ever cared for; not that we've played together, but that's the word every one uses. Dr. Bell said I wanted playmates; and Ingleby says so; and Uncle Crannie says so; and so did that dreadful Mrs. Thompson. Ah! when I had my Nino, and Muff and Puff, I wanted nobody;" and Dorothy was beginning to cry, when Ingleby, hearing the children's voices, now came from another room, where she had begun unpacking, bearing in her arms a bundle of clean, fresh clothes for Dorothy.
"Well, you have been asleep ever since eleven, and it is nearly four o'clock. You must want your dinner, I am sure; and then Miss Packingham is to go to her grandmamma's house. Your box was taken there, my dear, and so I cannot give you fresh things, but I must brush your frock and bend your hat straight."