A prettily dressed little girl passed the window.
"How do you do, little girl?" whispered Dotty, in a voice so low that even the cat did not hear. "O, what a booful hat you've got! Would your mamma make you wear a rainy dress, like mine? No, she wouldn't. Your mamma lets you go to parties all the days only Sundays. My mamma has sticked me into the nursery, and nothin' but a dar'needle to sew with! O, hum! And I haven't runned away since forever'n ever! They don't 'low me to run away. Wish Fanny Harlow'd asked me to her party. I know why she never! 'Cause she forgot I was born."
Presently there was a sound of little feet. Dotty was pattering up stairs.
"Didn't know I was sewing with a dar'needle—did you, mamma? Mayn't I go to Fanny Harlow's party?"
Mrs. Parlin was busy with visitors, and did not pay much heed to her little daughter. So Dotty crept close to her mother's side, and buried her roguish face behind her head-dress.
"Wish you'd please to punish me, mamma," said she; "punish me now; I'm a-goin' to be naughty?"
Mrs. Parlin smiled, and reminded Dotty that it was not polite to whisper in company. Then she went on talking with her friends, and Miss Dimple slipped quietly out of the room.
"I know I don't ought to," mused the child; "I'm a-goin' to do wicked, and get punished; but I want to do wicked, and get punished. I've been goody till I'm all tired up!"
Having made this decision, she went to Prudy's closet, and looked at the dresses hanging wrong side outward on the pegs.
"This is a booful one," said she, pulling down a scarlet merino. She put on the dress, forgetting, in her guilty haste, to take off her own blue one.