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Page 22
Dotty, brushing her hair, looked in the glass so intently that she did
not observe her Aunt Maria, who had quietly entered the room. Mrs.
Clifford was a wise woman, but she could not look into her niece's
heart. She thought Dotty was admiring her own beauty in the mirror,
whereas the child was not thinking of it at all.
What Mr. Beecher once said of little folks is very true:--
"Ah, well, there is a world of things in children's minds that grown-up
people do not understand, though they too once were young."
Mrs. Clifford went up to Dotty and kissed her. Then the little girl was
startled from her musings, and passing down stairs with her hand in Mrs.
Clifford's, thought she should be perfectly happy if dear Prudy were
only on the other side of her.
Everything she saw that was new or strange she had to stop and admire,
thinking it was an article that could only belong out West.
"O, auntie, what is this queer little thing with doors?"
"Grace's cabinet, dear."
"Her _cabijen_," exclaimed Flyaway, darting in from the next room.
"Good morning, Dotty Dimple," said Horace: "did my Guinea pig wake you?
I lost him out. What a noise he made! I wish he was in Guinea, where he
came from."
Dotty had never seen a Guinea pig. It was another curiosity, which
promised to be more remarkable than Phebe or Katinka. She began to think
coming West was like having one long play-day. Even the dining-room was
a novelty, with the swinging fan suspended over the table to keep off
flies.
"I have been wondering," said Mrs. Clifford, as she urned the coffee,
"how we shall amuse our little Dotty while she is here."
"Fishing," suggested Horace.
"Nutting," said Grace.
"_Prudy_ went to a _wedding_ when she was in Indiana," remarked Dotty,
in a low voice.
"We will try to get up a wedding then," said Horace; "but they are a
little out of fashion now."
"We have been thinking," observed Mrs. Clifford, "of a nutting excursion
for to-day. How would you like it, Edward?"
"Very much," replied Mr. Parlin. "I can spend but one day with you, and
I would as lief spend it nutting as in any other way."
"Only one day, Uncle Edward!" cried Grace and Horace.
"Only one day, papa!" stammered Dotty, feeling like a little kitten who
_did_ have her paw on a mouse, but sees the mouse disappear down a hole.
"O, I shall leave you, my daughter. You will stay here a week or two,
and meet me in Indianapolis."
Dotty was able to eat once more.
"Father, what are we to do for horses to go nutting with?" spoke up
Horace. "Robin raked this part of town yesterday with a fine-tooth
comb, and couldn't find anything but an old clothes' horse, and that was
past travelling."
"My son!"
Mr. Clifford's face said very plainly,--
"Not so flippant, my child!"
But the only remark he made was to the effect that there were doubtless
horses to be found in the city at the stables.
"What about the infant, mamma?" said Grace. "Is she to be one of the
party?"
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