d slammed the door behind him.

The children clustered at the window to see him set out on this
momentous errand, and he often looked back waving his umbrella at them,
till he vanished round the corner, with a reassuring pat on the pocket
out of which dear Do and Flo popped their heads for a last look at their
sweet home.

"Now let us take out poor old Lucinda and Rose Augusta to play with. I
know their feelings were hurt at our leaving them for the new dolls,"
said Maggie, rummaging in the baby-house, whither Margery soon followed
her to reinstate the old darlings in the place of the departed new ones.

"Safely off," reported Mr. Plum, when he came into tea, "and we may
expect to hear from them in a week or two. Parcels go more slowly than
letters, and this is Aunty's busy season, so wait patiently and see what
will happen."

"We will," said the little girls; and they did, but week after week went
by and nothing was heard of the wanderers.

We, however, can follow them and learn much that their anxious mothers
never knew.

As soon as Flora and Dora recovered from the bewilderment occasioned by
the confusion of the post office, they found themselves in one of the
many leathern mail bags rumbling Eastward. As it was perfectly dark they
could not see their companions, so listened to the whispering and
rustling that went on about them. The newspapers all talked politics,
and some of them used such bad language that the dolls would have
covered their ears, if their hands had not been tied down. The letters
were better behaved and more interesting, for they told one another the
news they carried, because nothing is private in America, and even
gummed envelopes cannot keep gossip from leaking out.

"It is very interesting, but I should enjoy it more if I was not
grinding my nose against the rough side of this leather bag," whispered
Dora, who lay undermost just then.

"So should I, if a heavy book was not pinching my toes. I've tried to
kick it away, but it won't stir, and keeps droning on about reports and
tariffs and such dull things," answered Flora, with a groan.

"Do you like travelling?" asked Dora, presently, when the letters and
papers fell asleep, lulled by the motion of the cars.

"Not yet, but I shall when I can look about me. This bundle near by says
the mails are often sorted in the cars, and in that way we shall see
something of the world, I hope," answered Flora, cheering up, for, like
her mamma, sh