CHAPTER VIII.
DOTTY'S WINDPIPE.
It mattered little to Dotty, after this, what happened.

She cared nothing about the elegant masters and misses who dropped in to dinner, though Prudy was too frightened to speak; nothing about the paroquets, and dried butterflies, and Japanese canoes she pretended to look at; nothing about the chatting and laughing, and very little about the Christmas plum-pudding, the oyster-pies, and ice cream.

Dotty had no heart for any of these things.

She was thinking continually, "Where are those rings ?" Fly did not dine, and Dotty had begged to stay with her.
"No," said Mrs.Pragoff, patting Miss Dimple's cheek with her dainty hand, which did not look as if it had ever been soiled with anything coarser than rose leaves; "I am glad to see you so kind to your dear little cousin; but she is asleep on my bed, and does not need you." Prudy sat at her hostess's right hand, and in spite of her bashfulness, was as happy a child as ever broke a wish-bone.

No one who has not had the care of a family can imagine the relief she felt now the cooking was off her mind.