When I have done, you shall come back to me." Alice kissed her father, and, getting off his knee, went at once in search of her friend Poopy.
That dark-skinned and curly black-headed domestic was in the kitchen, seated on the bottom of an overturned iron pot, inside the dingy niche in which the domestic fire was wont to burn when anything of a culinary nature was going on.

At the time when her mistress entered, nothing of the kind was in progress, and the fire had subsided to extinction.
The girl, who might have been any age between twelve and sixteen,--nearer the latter, perhaps, than the former,--was gazing with expressionless eyes straight before her, and thinking, evidently, of--nothing.

She was clothed in a white tunic, from which her black legs, arms, neck, and head protruded--forming a startling contrast therewith.
"O Poopy! what a bad girl you are!" cried Alice, laughing, as she observed where her maid was seated.
Poopy's visage at once beamed with a look of good-humor, a wide gash suddenly appeared somewhere near her chin, displaying a double row of brilliant teeth surrounded by red gums; at the same time the whites of her eyes disappeared, because, being very plump, it was a physical impossibility that she should laugh and keep them uncovered.
"Hee! hee!" exclaimed Poopy.
We are really sorry to give the reader a false impression, as we feel that we have done, of our friend Kekupoopi, but a regard for truth compels us to show the worst of her character first.

She was not demonstrative; and the few words and signs by which she endeavored to communicate the state of her feelings to the outward world were not easily interpreted except by those who knew her well.

There is no doubt whatever that Poopy was--we scarcely like to use the expression, but we know of no other more appropriate--a donkey! We hasten to guard ourselves from misconstruction here.