Things went on very much as usual with Miss Dimple. Lina did not quite forgive her for her unjust suspicions; still the two little girls chatted together, and seemed to be friends, for Lina knew how to keep her anger out of sight.

“But I don’t like to sit with her, though,” said Dotty to Tate. “I don’t think she’s very respectiful.”

“I don’t think she is, either,” responded Tate, rolling those eyes of hers, which, Dotty said, looked like little bits of balls of gray stocking-yarn, with a black pin in the middle. “I don’t think she is, either, and I know why.”

“Why she isn’t respectiful?” said Dotty.

“Yes; you tell me why you think so, and then I’ll tell you why I think so.”

“Well, ’cause,” said Dotty, “her mother sells locker beer, and snips with a thimble, and keeps such a dog; and then they—O, I don’t know what; but they don’t seem very respectiful at that house. Now you tell why.”

“I think it’s because there’s so much dirt on her dresses,” said Tate, lowering her voice; “and that’s what I always thought.”

“There isn’t any more dirt on her dresses than there is on her aprons,” rejoined Dotty, “and not quite so much; but any way, I don’t want to sit with her, and she keeps me whispering just as much as you do.”

“Nor I don’t like to sit with that Dice Prosser,” said Tate; “she’s just like a rubber baby.”

“Look here, Tate: you and I are the best kind of friends.”

“Yes, indeed, Dotty Dimple.”

“When I said you’s the wickedest girl there is in this state, I didn’t mean so, Tate!”

“Of course you didn’t mean so, for you couldn’t,” replied good-natured Tate.

“No! I like you ever so much,” said Dotty, with emphasis, “only I don’t like you about your holding up your hand, nights, for that’s a lie.”

“But I haven’t held it up for the longest while, Dotty Dimple.”

“No; because Miss Parker has stopped asking if we whisper. What you s’pose made her stop? You’d do it just the same, Tate, if she asked us; but then I forgive you; you are some bad, but not so bad as Lina Rosenbug. It can’t hurt me if you do tell stories with your hands, and I want to sit with you again.”

“And so do I want to sit with you, Dot Dimple.”

“Miss Parker’s such a darling,” continued Dotty, “and that’s what I began to say in the first place: who knows but if we ask her in just the prettiest way—”

“Not to-day, but to-morrow,” said Tate; “wait and I’ll wear my ruffled apron, and we’ll go up to her together and tell her—”

“O, no, Tate, we mustn’t tell her Lina isn’t respectiful! P’r’aps she doesn’t know it, and it would be telling a tale. We’ll take hold of hands, and say, we want to be together, ’cause we’re the best friends that ever was, and mean to be as good as ladies.”

“Yes, that’s it,” said Tate; and the children parted at the foot of a blackened elm, which they called “the half-way tree.” It was the place where they usually parted at night with a mutual kiss.

It happened that the next day was stormy, so Tate could not wear her ruffled apron.

“It looks as if we were going to have a heavy snow-storm,” said Mrs. Parlin, looking out of the window. “Edward, is it best to let Alice go to school?”

“O, yes, I think so,” said Mr. Parlin, “you are not very tender—are you, chickie?”

Dotty had two little front pockets in her wrapper, and they were full of pop-corn.

“No, papa,” said she, “I’m ever so tough,” and went on sprinkling salt into her pockets from the salt-box with holes in the top. “No, papa, I want to go to school to-day very partic’lar. I wouldn’t stay at home if the snow came down as big as this pop-corn.”

So Dotty was put into a water-proof cloak, and went with her two sisters; no more afraid of the storm than a snow-bird wrapped in his feathers.

“You here? O, ho!” said Tate, putting her arm around Dotty; “they like to not let me come; but I told ’em you and I had some business.”

“That’s what I told my mother,” said Dotty; “now let’s go right up to Miss Parker, and ask her.”

“No, I dassent, Dotty Dimple, my heart beats so; let’s wait till noon.”

The children waited, and meanwhile it snowed as if the sky were falling. Down fell the flakes, and the wind, whistling in glee, played with them, blowing them hither and yon. The air was so full of the white mass that Dotty thought the whole world looked as if it was shrouded in spotted lace. And presently it was not like lace; it was like sheets waving to and fro, and you could barely catch the faintest glimpses of trees and houses. It seemed as if the children in the school-room were shut out from the rest of the world; yet the door that shut them out was made of the softest snow.

“I had no idea of such a storm,” thought Miss Parker; “how are all these children to get home to dinner?”

But very soon the principal of the grammar school, up stairs, sent her a note, saying it was thought best not to dismiss school at noon, but have “a long session.”

Miss Parker was glad of this, for she knew, if her little pupils went home, their parents would not be likely to send them back in the afternoon. She heard all the morning lessons, and then gave a half hour’s recess, telling the children they might walk about the room and whisper; but they would not wish, she said, to go out of doors in such a storm.

There was a deal of buzzing and promenading. Tate and Dotty marched around, holding each other by the hand, and humming “John Brown,” under breath.

“Now’s the time to go up to Miss Parker; she’s only eating an apple,” said Dotty.

“No, I dassent yet; let’s wait till just before the bell rings,” replied easy Tate, who never would do anything disagreeable till the last minute.

“Well, then,” said Dotty, “let’s go to the window and look out. Did you ever, Tate Penny? Don’t you s’pose angels have wings?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Well, don’t you s’pose, when the little boys-and-girls angels get to playing up there, the small feathers pop out?”

“I don’t know.”

“And neither don’t I; only P’R’APS they do, and p’r’aps that’s snow.”

“The Bible don’t say so,” said Tate, “and besides, they wouldn’t play hard enough.”

“O, but the angels have such tender wings,” said Dotty, confidently. “Now, if you had ’em on your back, and I should hit you just so—not hard a bit—how the feathers would fly!”

To make her meaning clear, Dotty gave Tate’s shoulder a gentle pat, which would have done no harm if Tate had not been resting on one foot; but as she was, and the floor just in that spot was slippery, she fell against a desk, and made her nose bleed. She used first her own handkerchief, then Dotty’s, till both were drenched, and Dotty had a wild impulse to offer her the pockets of her wrapper.

“O, dear, I’m so sorry, Tate Penny! Your nose is just like an inkstand; every time anybody touches it, it tips over.”

“It isn’t any matter,” whispered Tate, “only I shall bleed the floor, and bleed my dress. I want to go home, and haven’t any apron on.”

“Here, take my slate, Tate Penny, and the sponge, too, while I ask Miss Parker if I mayn’t go home with you.”

“Tate has got the nose-bleed, Miss Parker,” said Dotty, “both sides of her nose, and I was the one that did it, but ’twas untennyshal. Mayn’t I take her home before she bleeds the house all up? She’s got it real hard, both sides, Miss Parker.”

The earnest look in Dotty’s eyes was not to be resisted. Miss Parker forgot the weather, and consented. She knew Tate lived very near the school-house; but she did not reflect that in this whizzing storm it was almost unsafe for such young children to walk even a short distance.

The little girls hurried on their cloaks and hoods, and started out, Miss Parker going into the entry with them, and giving Tate her own handkerchief, saying,—

“Use snow, my dear. I wouldn’t come back to school, for you won’t feel like it. Dotty, perhaps you’d better not go; it’s a terrible storm, and Tate can do as well alone.”

But Dotty insisted, and Miss Parker said no more. If she had only opened the outside door she would have seen at once what an imprudent thing she was allowing the children to do; but instead of opening the door, she turned and entered the school-room.

Dotty and Tate passed out into the storm. The wind shrieked at them like some wild animal, and rushed upon them as if it were seeking its prey.

“O, O, Tate Penny,” said Dotty catching her breath, “it’s going to blow us to which ways!”

“There’s snow enough, and more too; but I can’t—catch it,” gasped Tate, “to stop my—nose with—for the wind won’t let me—keep still a—mi—mi—minute.”

“Why, why! here I am, blowed down,” cried Dotty; and next moment Tate blew down too.

“Let’s go back to school,” said she, with a tremulous sigh.

But this was not to be thought of, for as they turned around, they were choked by a powerful gust.

“’Twill blow us out,” wailed Dotty, feeling like a feeble candle breathed upon by a giant.

Tate’s nose had ceased to bleed; but as they were now outside the school-yard, they decided to keep on, especially as they could not help it.

“We don’t walk,” observed Dotty, helplessly; “we blow.”

Still it was a hard struggle, for the snow was very deep indeed.

“What store is this?” said Tate, suddenly, after they had waded along in moody silence for quarter of an hour. “What store is it?”

“Don’t you know the way to your own mother’s house?” returned Dotty, falling head first into a drift.

“Yes; but where are we going to now? There used to be, O, Dotty, there used to be a house here, and now it’s a store.”

“Tate Penny, I never saw such a girl!”

“Yes, it is; I mean it was; and now what’s this?”

“Why, it’s a burnt place,” said Dotty; “don’t you know anything, Tate?”

“A burnt place? We don’t live near a burnt place. I don’t know where we are any more,” said Tate, sitting down and beginning to cry.

Dotty looked around quite bewildered. Neither did she know where they were. She presumed they must be in Portland, for they had not had time to be blown out of the city. Yes, it was Portland; but what street? The late fire had swept away all the old “landmarks,” and where there had been buildings were now only black ruins. Tate and Dotty were not the first who had been confused by these heaps of brick and mortar; many older people had lost their way that winter.

Dotty tried to peer through the moving sheets of snow-flakes, but only grew more and more confused.

“This must be somewhere else,” concluded she, “somewhere else—a great way off.”

“May be it’s Cape ’Liz’beth,” said Tate, crying afresh.

“Tate Penny, get up, or you’ll die; that’s the way to freeze to death.”

“I want to die,” moaned Tate.

“You stop it; stop dying this minute,” screamed Dotty.

Tate rose drearily, but let the wind blow her down again.

“O, dear, Tate Penny, I wish your nose didn’t bleed so easy!”

“Well, it does; but when I’m dead it won’t.”

“Tate, Tate, we can’t ever be buried in the stemmitry!”

“Why not?”

“’Cause, we shall blow into the Stiftic Ocean.”

“Do you s’pose we’ll die?” said poor Tate, her eyes dripping icicles.

“No, I shan’t,” replied Dotty; “but you said you should.”

Tate really did not know whether to keep her word or not. She thought she did not care.

“But if you do die, you’ll be dreadful ’shamed of it,” went on Dotty; “and there won’t anybody pity you.”

“I’m willing to go,” said Tate, wringing her hands, “I’m willing to go, and keep going; but I don’t know where to go to.”

As she spoke they had reached a corner. “Where to go to,” they might well ask, for the wind started up afresh, and, instead of blowing two ways, it blew four. It sent the children towards the west, and in the next instant hurled them north, against a lamp-post.

“I shouldn’t think it need to act so to us little girls,” said Tate, despairingly.

“O, dear,” cried Dotty. “O, dear, dear, Tate Penny, I’m going to give up!”

Tate shrieked aloud. If Dotty gave up they were certainly lost.