Fly slept in a little cot beside her hostess's bed. Mrs. Pragoff, poor lady, reclined half the night on her elbow, watching the child's breathing; but, to her inexpressible relief, nothing happened that was at all alarming. Fly only waked once in the night, and asked in a drowsy tone, "Have I got a measle?"

But just as Mrs. Pragoff was enjoying a morning nap, a pair of little feet went pricking over the floor, towards the girls' room, but soon returned, and a sweet young voice cried,—

"O, Miss Perdigoff, I can't wake up Dotty!"

"Can't wake her, child!"

"No'm, I can't; nor Prudy can't: we can't wake up Dotty."

Mrs. Pragoff roused at once, with a new cause for alarm.

"Why, what does this mean? Did you try hard to wake her?"

"Yes'm; I shaked her."

Mrs. Pragoff now remembered, with terror, that there had been a little trouble with Dotty's windpipe. Could she have choked to death?

Rising instantly, she threw on her wrapper, and was hurrying across the passage, when Fly added,—

"'Haps she'll let you wake her; she wouldn't let me 'n' Prudy."

"You little mischief, is that what you mean? She won't let you wake her?"

"No'm, she won't," replied artless Fly; "she said she wouldn't be bovvered."

Mrs. Pragoff went to bed again, laughing at her own folly.

Dotty, it seems, was feeling very much like a bitter-sour apple. It had always been a peculiarity of hers to visit her own sins upon other people. Prudy did not suspect in the least what the matter was, but knew, from experience, it was safest to ask no questions.

"I'm going back to auntie's, this morning."

"Why, Dotty, Uncle Augustus and auntie won't be home till night. Mrs. Pragoff said she would take us to the Park and the Museum, you know."

"I don't care how much you go to parks and museums, Prudy; I want to be at home long enough to get my hair brushed and put away my things."

Prudy looked up in surprise; but the rousing-bell sounded, and both the little girls had as much as they could do to get ready for breakfast. When Mrs. Pragoff met them in the parlor, she saw two lovely dimples playing in Dotty's cheeks; for the child was old enough, and had pride enough, to conceal her disagreeable feelings from strangers. All very well, only she might have carried the concealment a little farther, and spared poor Prudy much discomfort.

Not that Prudy thought of complaining,—for really her younger sister's temper was greatly improved. For a year or two she had scarcely been known to get seriously angry, and Prudy did not mind a sharp retort now and then, or even an hour's sulks.

While Dotty sipped her chocolate from a cup so delicate that it looked like a gilded bubble, she was wondering how she could get home. She did not know the way, and could not ask any one to go with her without making up an excuse.

"I could say I am sick, but that wouldn't be true, and me eating muffins and honey. I'm afraid 'twasn't quite true last night. I did feel rather funny, though, in my windpipe, now honest."

There seemed to be no other way but to wait and go home with the rest of the children. Dotty tried to think there might be time enough, after all, to find the rings.

They started for the Park.

"May I depend upon you, Master Horace, to take the entire charge of your little sister!" said Mrs. Pragoff, fastening her ermine cloak with fingers which actually trembled; "I confess I haven't the courage; and I see you understand managing her perfectly."

Of course Horace always expected to take care of Topknot. He would gladly have done a much harder thing for a lady who was so polite, and appreciated him so well.

Mrs. Pragoff gave a hand to Prudy and Dotty, saying gayly, as they all five took a car for the Park,—

There was just enough snow to whiten the ground, but none to spare. Everybody was determined to make the most of it while it lasted, and the Park was full of people sleigh-riding. It was really a wonderful sight. There were miles and miles of sleighs of all sorts, shaped like sea-shells, cradles, boats, water-lilies, or any other fanciful things. The people in them were so gay with various colors, that they looked like long lines of rainbows. Many of the horses had silver-mounted harnesses, and on their necks stood up little silver trees, branching out into sleigh-bells, and sprinkling the air with merry music.

"See, children, let us ride in this beautiful sleigh; it is shaped like a Spanish gondola, and we ought to have music as we float."

"Fly can sing the 'Shepherd's Pipe coming over the Mountains,'" said Dotty; and forthwith the child began to warble the softest, sweetest music from her wonderful little throat. Dotty queried privately why it should be called the shepherd's pipe: how could a shepherd smoke while he sang?

"O, how beautiful!" said everybody, when the music ceased.

They meant that everything was beautiful. The air was so balmy, and the sky so soft, that you might fancy the sun was walking in his sleep, writing his dreams on the white clouds.

"Splendid!" exclaimed Fly, forgetting, perhaps, that she was not a flying-fish, and trying to dive head first out of the gondola.

"Tell me, children, if you don't think our Park is very fine?"

"Yes'm," was the faint reply in chorus.

"Why don't you say, 'We never saw the like before?'"

"O, we have, you know, ma'am," said Prudy; "it's just like riding round Willow-brook."

"Fie! don't tell me there's anything so beautiful in Maine! I expect you to be enchanted every step of the way. Look at this pond, with, the swans sailing on it."

"O, yes; those are beauties," cried Dotty; "I never saw any but cotton flannel ones before. But do you think the pond is as pretty as Bottomless Pond, Prudy, where Uncle Henry goes for pitcher-plants?"

"You prosy little creature," said Mrs. Pragoff, laughing; "I am afraid you don't admire these picturesque rocks and tree-stumps as you should."

Dotty thought this was certainly a jest.

"Pity there's so many. Why don't they hire men to dig 'em up by the roots?"

Horace smiled on Dotty patronizingly.

"They'll do it some time, Dot. The Park is new. Things can't be finished in a minute, even in New York."

Mrs. Pragoff smiled quietly, but was too polite to tell Horace the rocks had been brought there as an ornament, at great expense.

"I like the Park, if it isn't finished," said Prudy, summoning all her enthusiasm; "I know you'll laugh, Horace, but I like it better for the rocks; they make it look like home."

The ride would have seemed perfect to everybody; only a wee sleigh passed them, drawn by a pair of goats, and Fly thought at once how much better a "goat-hossy" must be than a "growned-up hossy, that didn't have no horns." She thought about it so much, that at last she could contain herself no longer. "There was little girls in that pony-sleigh, Miss Perdigoff, with a boy a-drivin.' 'Haps they'd let me go, too, if you asked 'em, Miss Perdigoff. My mamma don't 'low me to trouble nobody, and I shan't; only I thought I'd let you know I wanted to go, Miss Perdigoff."

Mrs. Pragoff laughed heartily, and thought Fly should certainly have a ride, "ahind the goat-horses;" but it was not possible, as the cunning little sleigh was engaged for hours in advance.

A visit to the Zoological Gardens comforted the little one, however, after she got over her first fear of the animals. There they saw a vulture, like a lady in a cell, looking sadly out of a window, the train of her grey and brown dress trailing on the ground. Horace thought of Lady Jane Grey in prison.

There was a white stork holding his red nose against his bosom, as if to warm it. A red macaw peeling an apple with his bill. Brown ostriches, like camels, walking slowly about, as if they had great care on their minds.

Green monkeys biting sticks and climbing bars. A spotted leopard, licking his feet like a cat. A fierce panther, looking out of a window in the same discontented mood as the vulture.

"See him stoop down," said Dotty; "he makes as much bones of himself as he can."

A horned owl, with eyes like auntie's when she looks "'stonished."

An eagle, with a face, Horace said, like a very cute lawyer.

A "speckled bear," without any spectacles. A "nelephant" like a great hill of stone, and a baby "nelephant," with ears like ruffled aprons.

An anaconda that "kept making a dandelion of himself."

A great grizzly bear hugging a young grizzly daughter.

"Who made that grizzle?" asked Fly, disgusted.

"God."

"Why did He? I wouldn't!—Miss Perdegoff, which does God love best, great ugly grizzles or hunkydory little parrots?"

"O, fie!" said Mrs. Pragoff, really shocked; "where did a well-bred child like you ever hear such a coarse word as that?"

"Hollis says hunkydory," replied Fly, with her finger in her mouth, while Horace pretended to be absorbed in a monkey.

Mrs. Pragoff turned the subject.

"Tell me, children, which do you consider the most wonderful animal you have ever seen?"

"The lion," replied Prudy.

"The whale," said Dotty. "Which do you, Mrs. Pragoff?"

"This sort of animal, that thinks," replied the lady, touching Dotty's shoulder: "this shows the most amazing power of all."

"You don't mean to call me an animal," said Dotty, with a slight shade of resentment in her voice.

"Why, little sister, I just hope you're not a vegetable! Don't you know we are all animals that breathe?"

"O, are we? Then I don't care," said Dotty, and serenely followed the others up stairs, "where the dried things were."

Next they went to Wood's Museum, and saw greater wonders still.

The "Sleeping Beauty," dreaming of the Prince, with lips just parted and breath very gently coming and going. Dotty would not believe at first that her waxen bosom palpitated by clockwork.

There were distorted mirrors, which Horace held Flyaway up to peep into, that he might enjoy her bewilderment when she saw her face twisted into strange shapes.

The Cardiff Giant, which Horace said "you might depend upon was a hoax."

An Egyptian dromedary, which Fly "just knew" had a sore throat; and a stuffed gorilla in "buffalo coat and leather gloves."

Then they had a lunch at Delmonico's, quite as good, Prudy admitted, "as what you found in Boston."

After this, to Dotty's dismay, they went to the Academy of Design, and criticised pictures.

The statue of Eve Horace regarded with some contempt. "No wonder she didn't know any better than to eat the apple! What do you expect of a woman with such a small head as that? Look here who do you suppose was Eve's shoemaker? Cain?"

"Shoemaker? Why, Horace, she's barefoot."

"So she is, now, Dot; but she's worn shoes long enough to cramp her toes."

"Strange I never noticed that before," said Mrs. Pragoff. "I think the sculptor ought to know your criticism, Master Horace."

"She's a woman that understands what a boy is worth," thought Horace, very much flattered. "Tell you what, I never saw a more sensible person than Mrs. Pragoff."

"Now, dears, shall we go to Stewart's?"

"O, no'm; please don't," cried Dotty. "Because," added she, checking herself, "their curtains are all down; and don't you s'spose Mr. Stewart and the clerks have gone off somewhere?"

Mrs. Pragoff laughed, but, concluding the child was very tired, proposed going home; and, to Dotty's great joy, they started at once.

"I shall so grieve to part with you!" said Mrs. Pragoff, as they went along. "I wish you were mine to keep, every soul of you."

But Dotty noticed that while she spoke she was looking at Prudy.