s and servants
often heard her laughing, and making Miss MacDowlas laugh as they sat
together in their private parlor.

The two were sitting thus together one Saturday early in July,--Dolly in
a loose white wrapper, resting in a low basket chair by the open window,
and fanning herself languidly,--when a visitor was announced, and the
moment after the announcement a tall young lady rushed into the room
and clasped Dolly unceremoniously in her arms, either not observing or
totally ignoring Miss MacDowlas's presence.

"Dolly!" she cried, kneeling down by the basket chair and speaking so
fast that her words tumbled over each other, and her sentences were
curiously mingled. "Oh! if you please, dear, I know it was n't polite,
and I never meant to do it in such an unexpected, awfully rude way; and
what mamma would say, I am sure I cannot tell, unless go into dignified
convulsions, and shudder herself stiff; but how could I help it, when
I came expecting to see you as bright and lovely as ever, and caught a
glimpse of you through the door, as the servant spoke, sitting here so
white and thin and tired-looking! Oh, dear! oh, dear! how ever can it
be!"

"My dear Phemie!" said Dolly, laughing and crying both at once, through
weakness and sympathy,--for of course poor, easily moved Phemie had
burst into a flood of affectionate tears. "My dear child, how excited
you are, and how pleasant it is to see you! How did you manage to come?"

"The professor with the lumpy face--poor, pale darling--I mean you, not
him," explained the eldest Miss Bilberry, clinging to her ex-governess
as if she was afraid of seeing her float through the open window. "The
professor with the lumpy face, Dolly; which shows he is not so horrid as
I always thought him, and I am very sorry for being so inconsiderate, I
am sure--you know he cannot help his lumps any more than I can help my
dreadful red hands and my dresses not fitting."

Dolly stopped her here to introduce her to Miss MacDowlas; and that
lady having welcomed her good-naturedly, and received her incoherent
apologies for her impetuous lack of decorum, the explanation proceeded.

"How could the professor send you here?" asked Dolly.

"He did not exactly send me, but he helped me," replied the luckless
Euphemia, becoming a trifle more coherent. "I saw you at the little
church, though you did not see me, because, of course, we sit in the
most disagreeable part, just where we can't see or be seen a