"O, my darling mamma, my darling mamma!"
To her surprise, the horse did not stop. He only pricked up his ears, and looked with displeasure at the windmill, but kept along as before.
"Mamma, mamma, I say!"
Her mother never even looked at her, but turned her gaze to the blackened trees, the heaps of ruin along the pavement.
"O; papa! O, stop, papa! It's me! It's Dotty!"
Mr. Parlin bent on his runaway daughter a glance of indifference, and called out, in passing,—
"What strange little girl is this, who seems to know us so well? It looks like my daughter Alice. If it is, she needn't come to my house to-day; she may go and finish her visit at Mrs. Rosenberg's."
Then the horse trotted on,—indeed, he had never paused a moment,—and carried both those dear, dear people out of sight.
What did they mean? What had happened to Dotty Dimple, that her own father and mother did not know her?
She looked down at the skirt of her dress, at her gaiters, at her little bare hands, to make sure no wicked fairy had changed her. Not that she suspected any such thing. She understood but too well what her father and mother meant. They knew her, but had not chosen to recognize her, because they were displeased.