She answered him with some confusion.  “I don’t want anything.  I was the girl, you know, that the boy was going somewhere to find something.”

The man smiled wickedly, and said, “Yees, mees.”  In an instant it flashed across Dotty that she had got into the wrong store.  Where was the glass window she had walked on?  They couldn’t have taken that out while she was gone.  The floor was whole, and made of nothing but boards.

“Well, it’s very queer stores should be twins,” thought Dotty.

She entered the next one.  It was not a “twin;” it was full of books and pictures.

“Why didn’t Horace leave me here, in the first place, it was so much nicer.  And they let people read and handle the pictures.  O, they have the goldest-looking things!”

How shocked Prudy would have been, if she had seen her little sister reaching up to the counter, and turning over the leaves of books, side by side with grown people!  Miss Dimple was never very bashful; and what did she care for the people in New York, who never saw her before?  She soon became absorbed in a fairy story.  Seconds, minutes, quarters; it was a whole hour before she came to herself enough to remember that Horace was to call for her, and she was not where he had left her.

“But he can’t scold; for didn’t he keep me waiting, too?  Now I’ll go back.”

The next place she entered was a cigar store.

“I might have known better than to go in; for there’s that wooden Indian standing there, a-purpose to keep ladies out!”

“O, here’s a ‘Sample Room.’  Now this must be the place, for it says ‘Push,’ on the green door, just as the other one did.”

What was Dotty’s astonishment, when she found she had rushed into a room which held only tables, bottles, and glasses, and men drinking something that smelt like hot brandy!

“I shan’t go into any more ‘Sample Rooms.’  I didn’t know a ‘Sample’ meant whiskey!  But, I do declare, it’s funny where my store is gone to.”

The child was going farther and farther away from it.

“Here is one that looks a little like it Any way, I can see a glass window in there, on the floor.”

A lady stood at a counter, folding a piece of green velvet ribbon.  Dotty determined to make friends with her; so she went up to her, and said, in a low voice, “Will you please tell me, ma’am, if I’m the same little girl that was in here before?  No, I don’t mean so.  I mean, did I go into the same store, or is this a different one?  Because there’s a boy going to call for me, and I thought I’d better know.”

Of course the lady smiled, and said it might, or might not be the same place; but she did not remember to have seen Dotty before.

“What was the number of the store?  The boy ought to have known.”

“But I don’t believe he did,” replied Dotty, indignantly; “he never said a word to me about numbers.  I’m almost afraid I’ll get lost!”