CHAPTER X.
SURPRISES.
After a very happy day in the woods, the Cliffords started for home with as many nuts as they could carry.
Dotty said she had had a nice time; but for some reason she could not go to sleep that night.

There was a burning sensation in her right side, and she had a horrible fancy that a snake had bitten her.

She could not endure the thought of lying and listening to the strokes of the clock.
"I'll go find my father," thought she, with that "far-off" feeling at her heart again.
But which way to go?
She had not yet learned the plan of the house, but had no doubt she could find her father's room.

She pattered about the chambers with her little bare feet, and at last waked Horace by overturning a chair near his bed.
"Why, who is there?
And what's wanted ?" "It's me, and I want my father." By this time Aunt Maria, hearing a noise, had come in with a light.
"Are you sick, dear child ?" "No, auntie; I don't know what's the matter; I 'spect it's the blues.

I had 'em you know, when the beer came to an end--I mean the world--I mean that night Polly Whiting called me up." Horace used all his self-control to keep from laughing.
"Well, Cousin Dotty, you do look blue, I declare; as blue as the skimmiest milk of the cheatiest milkman.