Presently there was a sound of little feet.  Dotty was pattering up stairs.

“Didn’t know I was sewing with a dar’needle—­did you, mamma?  Mayn’t I go to Fanny Harlow’s party?”

Mrs. Parlin was busy with visitors, and did not pay much heed to her little daughter.  So Dotty crept close to her mother’s side, and buried her roguish face behind her head-dress.

“Wish you’d please to punish me, mamma,” said she; “punish me now; I’m a-goin’ to be naughty?”

Mrs. Parlin smiled, and reminded Dotty that it was not polite to whisper in company.  Then she went on talking with her friends, and Miss Dimple slipped quietly out of the room.

“I know I don’t ought to,” mused the child; “I’m a-goin’ to do wicked, and get punished; but I want to do wicked, and get punished.  I’ve been goody till I’m all tired up!”

Having made this decision, she went to Prudy’s closet, and looked at the dresses hanging wrong side outward on the pegs.

“This is a booful one,” said she, pulling down a scarlet merino.  She put on the dress, forgetting, in her guilty haste, to take off her own blue one.

“O, my suz!  I never did see!” said Dotty, puffing and tugging in her efforts to fasten the frock.  “My mother must make Prudy’s clo’es bigger’n this; yes, she must.  It chokes.”

However, by dint of much hard work she succeeded in squeezing her round little figure into the red merino, and fastening two of the buttons.  “O, hum!” sighed she; “this dress is so tight I shan’t grow to-day!”

Dotty had a great admiration for her mother’s purple breakfast shawl, which she now threw over her little shoulders with tremulous delight.  Nono’s Sunday bonnet she next laid her naughty hands upon.  Very charming was this bonnet in Dotty’s eyes, as it was made of claret-colored silk, and was all on fire inside with scorching red and yellow flames.  It was so huge and so deep that Dotty’s small face under it looked as if it had got lost in Mammoth Cave.

“Now I’ve got every single clo’es on me.  Guess there won’t anybody think I’m a boy this time,” mused she, giving a last glance at the mirror; “there won’t anybody laugh, and say, ’How d’ye do, my fine little fellow?’”

Very well pleased with herself, Dotty dressed “brother Zip” in Prudy’s water-proof cloak, and they both stole out by the side door, without being seen.  But which way to go Dotty could not tell.

“Where is the-girl-that-has-the-party’s house?” thought she, under her bonnet.  “Well, it’s by the stone lions, ’most up to the North Pole.  Now, Zippy, if we keep a-goin’ we shall get there, and we’ll see some girls out by the door.”

Zip wagged his faithful tail, which was quite hidden under the cloak, and they both trudged on, Dotty’s heart quivering with wicked delight.

She happened to go in the right direction, and at last did really reach the “house by the stone lions.”  Several young girls were indeed playing in the yard.