"Well, any way, here's that beautiful church, with ivy round it; it's ever so near auntie's; so I'll keep walking."
Dotty was right when she said the church was near auntie's—it was within three doors; but she was wrong when she kept walking precisely the wrong way. She crossed over to Sixth Avenue. Now, where were the brown houses? She saw the horse-cars plodding along, and tried to read the words on them.
"'Sixth Ave. and Fifty-Ninth Street.' Why, what's an ave? I never heard of such a thing before; we don't have 'aves' in Portland. There are ever so many people getting out of that car. While it stops, I'll peep in, and see where it's going to. Perhaps there's a name inside that tells."
And, with her usual rashness, Dotty stepped upon the platform of the car, and looked in. What she expected to see she hardly knew,—perhaps "Aunt Madge's House," in gold letters; but what she really saw was, "No Smoking;" those two words, and nothing more.
"Well, who wants to smoke? I'm sure I don't," thought Dotty, disdainfully, and was turning to step off the platform, when Horace Clifford seized her by the shoulder.
"Where did you come from, you runaway?" said he, gruffly.
Close beside him were Aunt Madge and Prudy; all three were getting out of the car.
"Thank Heaven, one of them is found," cried Aunt Madge, her face very pale, her large eyes full of trouble.
Prudy kissed and scolded in the same breath. "O, Dotty Dimple, you'd better believe we're glad to see you?—but what a naughty girl! A pretty race you've led Horace, and he just wild about Fly!"
"H'm! what'd he go off for, then, and leave me there, sitting on a piano stool? S'pose I's going to sit there all day? Didn't I want to go home as much as the rest of you."