After a moment, there appeared just above the fingers a half-curled, flossy lock of pale gold-colored hair, and softly dawning after that aurora, a beautiful child's face.
"Oh! come to me!" exclaimed Margaret.
Immediately the face disappeared, and there was silence.
Miss Hamilton leaned back in her chair again, and began to recollect the tactics for such cases made and provided by the great law-giver Nature. She affected not to be aware that the silken locks reappeared, and after them a glimpse of a low, milk-white forehead, then a blue, bright eye, and finally, the whole exquisite little form in a gala-dress of white, with a gay sash and shoulder-knots.
Dora came in looking intently at the mantel-piece, and elaborately unconscious that there was any one present but herself. Miss Hamilton's attention was entirely absorbed by the outer world.
"I never did see such a lovely flower as there is in that window," she soliloquized. "It is as pink as ever it can be. Indeed, I think it is a little pinker than it can conveniently be. It must have to try hard."
Dora glanced toward the stranger, and listened attentively.
"And I see three tiny clouds scudding down the east. I shouldn't be surprised if their mother didn't know they are out. They run as if they didn't mean to stop till they get into the middle of next week."
Dora took a step or two nearer, looked warily at the speaker, and peeped out the window in search of the truant cloudlets.