The dear God would attend to her, she knew.

He cared just as much about her one little self as if she had been the whole United States.

But Dotty did not understand how this could be.
"I wish I hadn't come out West at all," thought she.

"They're going to take me up to Indi'nap'lis; and there I'll have to stay, p'raps a week; for my father always has such long business! Dear, dear! and I don't know but everybody's dead!" Just as she had drawn a curtain of gloom over her bright little face, and had buried both her dimples under it, and all her smiles, Uncle Henry came home from his office, looking very roguish.
"Well, little miss, and what do you suppose I've brought you from up town?
Put on your thinking-cap, and tell me." "Bananas?
papaws?
'simmons?
lemons?
Dear me, what is it?
Is it to eat or wear?
And have you got it in your pocket ?" Uncle Henry, who had had his hand behind him, now held it out with a letter in it--a letter in a white envelope, directed, in clear, elegant writing, to "Miss Alice B.Parlin, care of H.S.Clifford, Esq., Quinn, Indiana." There could be no mistake about it; the letter was intended for Dotty Dimple, and had travelled all the way by mail.

But then that title, Miss, before the name! It was more than probable that the people all along the road had supposed it was intended for a young lady! [Illustration: DOTTY'S FIRST POST-OFFICE LETTER.