“Why, little girls can think and feel you know; but with dollies it is different.  Now, good night, pet; you won’t have beautiful dreams, if you talk any more.”

CHAPTER IV.

“TAKING OUR AIRS.”

Flyaway awoke singing, and sprang up in bed, saying,—­

“Why, I thought I’s a car, and that’s why I whissiled.”

“But you are not a car,” yawned Prudy; “please don’t sing again, or dance, either.”

“It’s the happerness in me, Prudy; and that’s what dances; it’s the happerness.”

“That’s the worst part of Fly Clifford,” groaned Dotty; “she won’t keep still in the morning.  Might have known there wouldn’t be any peace after she got here.”

Dotty always came out of sleep by slow stages, and her affections were the last part of her to wake up.  Just now she did not love Katie Clifford one bit, nor her own mother either.

“Won’t you light the lamp?” piped Flyaway.

“Please don’t, Fly,” said Prudy; “don’t talk!”

“Won’t you light the la-amp?”

“No, we will not,” said Dotty, firmly.

“Won’t you light the la-amp?”

“Is this what we came to New York for?” moaned Dotty; “to be waked up in the middle of the night by folks singing?”

“Won’t you light the la-amp?”

“I’ll pack my dresses, and go right home!  I’ll—­I’ll have Fly Clifford sleep out o’ this room.  Why, I—­I—­”

“Won’t you light the la-amp?”

Prudy sprang out of bed, convulsed with laughter, and lighted the gas; whereupon Fly began to dance “Little Zephyrs,” on the pillow, and Dotty to declare her eyes were put out.

“Little try-patiences, both of them,” thought Prudy; “but then they’ve always had their own way, and what can you expect?  I’m so glad I wasn’t born the youngest of the family; it does make children so disagreeable!”

As soon as Dotty was fairly awake, her love for her friends came back again, and her good humor with it.  She made Fly bleat like a lamb and spin like a top, and applauded her loudly.

“It’s gl-orious to have you here, Fly Clifford.  I wouldn’t let you go in any other room to sleep for anything.”

Which shows that the same thing looked very different to Dotty after she got her eyes open.

When the children went down to breakfast, they found bouquets of flowers by their plates.

“I am delighted to see such happy faces.” said Aunt Madge.  “How would you all like to go out by and by, and take the air?”

“We’d like it, auntie; and I’ll tell you what would be prime,” remarked Horace, from his uncle’s place at the head of the table; “and that is, to take Fly to Stewart’s, and have her go up in an elevator.”

“Why couldn’t I go up, too?” asked Dotty, with the slightest possible shade of discontent in her voice.  She did not mean to be jealous, but she had noticed that Flyaway always came first with Horace, and if there was anything hard for Dotty’s patience, it was playing the part of Number Two.