d we couldn't hear 'em pound it down with an
axe--could we? That isn't what makes thunder? O, what a boy!"

Mr. Parlin laughed heartily.

"Did Adolphus tell you such a story as that?"

"Yes, sir, he did," cried Dotty, indignantly, "and said there was a
dipper to it, with a handle on, as large as a tub. And a man tied it
that came from I-don't-know-where, and found this world. I know _that_
wasn't true, for he didn't say anything about Adam and Eve. What an
awful boy!"

"What did you say to Adolphus?" said Mr. Parlin, still laughing. "Hadn't
you been putting on airs? And wasn't that the reason he made sport of
you?"

"I don't know what 'airs' are, papa."

"Perhaps you told him, for instance, that you were travelling out West,
and asked him if _he_ ever went so far as that."

"Perhaps I did," stammered Dotty.

"And it is very likely you made the remark that you had the whole care
of yourself, and know how to part your hair in the middle. I did not
listen; but it is possible you told him you could play on the piano."

Dotty looked quite ashamed.

"This is what we call 'putting on airs.' Adolphus was at first rather
quiet and unpretending. Didn't you think he might be a little stupid?
And didn't you wish to give him the idea that you yourself were
something of a fine lady?"

How very strange it was to Dotty that her father could read the secret
thoughts which she herself could hardly have told! She felt supremely
wretched, and crept into his bosom to hide her blushing face.

"I didn't say Adolphus did right to tease you," said Mr. Parlin, gently.

He thought the little girl's lesson had been quite severe enough; for,
after all, she had done nothing very wrong: she had only been a little
foolish.

"Upon my word, chincapin," said he, "we haven't opened that basket yet!
What do you say to a lunch, with the Boston Journal for a table-cloth?
And here comes a boy with some apples."

In two minutes Dotty had buried her chagrin in a sandwich.

And all the while the cars were racketing along towards Boston.

CHAPTER III.

A BABY IN A BLUE CLOAK.

Dotty had begun to smile again, and was talking pleasantly with
her father, when there was a sudden rocking of the cars, or, as Prudy
had called it, a "car-quake." Dotty would have been greatly alarmed if
she had not looked up in her father's face and seen that it was
perfectly tranquil. They had run over a cow.

This little accident gave a new turn to the