"But your mamma will be there, you know; and I told you what they are going to have for dinner."
"Yes, secretary," said Flyaway, proud of her memory. "She is a very nice cooker, but you'll have hard work to get me to go."
She drawled out the words languidly, and seemed on the point of going to sleep.
"O, girls, girls, girls," cried Prudy, opening the door and looking out, "our wheelbarrow is gone—it's gone!"
"It's bugglers; I told you so," said Dotty.
Mr. Poindexter was quite amused by his little sitters. "I saw that you came in a coach," said he, "and without any horses."
"Our grandmother said we might," spoke up Dotty, anxious to divert all blame from herself. "She said we might; but Prudy ought to have gone straight home. I knew it all the time."
"I dare say some one has driven off your carriage in sport," said the kind-hearted photographer; "never fear."
"O, no, sir; it was new and red. Folks wanted it to haul stones in, and that was why they took it," said Dotty, wrathfully.
The children looked up street and down street. No wheelbarrow in sight. "We must go to aunt Martha's, and then come back and hunt for it, if we have to go without our dinners," they said. They took Flyaway between them, and marched her off. She was almost as passive as a rag baby, ready to drop down anywhere, and fall asleep. "'Cause I am so tired," said she.