for at the very first, when she found that it was a talk between a party
of friends, and they were unconscious of a stranger's near neighborhood,
she had done her best to make her presence known to them by various
little coughs and ahems, and once or twice by decided movements, and
readjustments of her position. As no attention was paid to these
demonstrations, she finally concluded that none of the party cared
whether they were overheard or not, and so settled herself comfortably
back again into her place, and opened her book.

But she could not read much. These talkers were all about her own age,
and if they did not care that a stranger was overhearing what they said,
she need not trouble herself any more; and it was quite certain she
found the talk amusing, for more than once a ripple of merriment would
dimple her face, and the laughter would nearly break forth from her
lips. Even at the last, when Agnes spoke so scornfully of the little
yellow dog, the girl seemed to be more amused than annoyed; and she
quite understood Miss Agnes's unfinished sentence, too, and Dora's
little device to make it unfinished.

It was then only that she saw that her attempts to inform the party of
her near neighborhood had been unsuccessful. She got rather red as this
knowledge was forced upon her; then, like Will Wentworth, she burrowed
down deeper than ever in the hammock, and gave way to a little burst of
laughter, though, unlike Will's, hers was no noisy explosion.

All the time she was watching Will and the girls as they took their way
across the lawn; and as soon as they disappeared from her view, she
jumped from the hammock, and with the fleetest of fleet footsteps ran
into the house. Coming down the long wide hall, she met the very person
she was going in search of,--the person that Dora Robson had called
"that stuffy old woman;" and trotting after her was the little yellow
dog, who had just been washed and brushed until his short hair shone
like satin.

"Oh, Pete, Pete, come here!" and Pete at this invitation flew to his
young mistress's arms with much demonstration of delight.

"And they called you a vulgar plebeian dog, Pete, just think of that!"
cried the girl, as she fondled the little animal.

"Who called him that, Peggy?" asked her companion, in a surprised tone.

"One of those girls at the table by the window. Oh, auntie, I want to
tell you about it. I was coming to find you on purpose to tell you.
Let's go in her