As this was a very long speech for a baby two months old, the audience were taken by surprise, and laughed heartily. Poor little Flyaway was lifted out of the shawl, and kissed over and over again. She had not played properly, it is true, but she had intended to do right, and was applauded for her good intentions. Dotty saw and heard the whole. She was sorry she had refused the part, and she put her fingers in her mouth, and sulked, because little Flyaway had been stealing the praise she might have received herself. After both syllables of the charade had been acted and guessed, then the other half of the company took their turn, and attempted to arrange a tableau. There was a deal of confusion. No one knew exactly what ought to be done. They were to have a Goddess of Liberty, and finally decided to dress her in an embroidered window curtain, with a shield on her breast made of a blue box cover, striped with yellow silk. Dotty was selected as goddess, on account of her superior beauty. "But my mamma never 'lows me to wear window curtains, and I sha'n't be a tolly-blow 'thout I can wear my white dress with red spots, and a big bosom-pin in!" "And a shaker," suggested one of the girls. "I didn't know before that Susy Parlin had such a bad sister." This was too much. Dotty's head was on fire. She caught the girl by the shoulder, and shook her as if she had been a breadth of dusty carpeting; then ran away. Which way she went she did not heed, and never stopped till she came to a dark pantry, which had been made without any windows, on purpose to keep out flies. The unhappy child threw herself, out of breath, upon the floor of this closet, her heart beating high with rage and shame. CHAPTER XI. JOHNNY'S REVENGE. Dotty's cross behavior had entirely spoiled the pleasure of the evening for her two sisters. They felt, as they had felt years before, when they saw her, a mere baby, perched upon the wood-box, with her hands and feet tied--they felt that it was a family disgrace. All these little boys and girls, who had never known before what Dotty's temper was, knew all about it now; they would talk of it to one another; they would go home and tell of it, and remember it forever and ever. "And, O dear!" thought Susy, "they won't know she was born so, and can't help it." For that this was the case, Susy firmly believed. "I've got it written in my journal," thought Prudy, "how she promised to swallow it down; but Dotty isn't well, and that's the reason she can't remember." Both the sisters knew that Dotty had left the parlors, and they were very glad of it. They did not attempt to follow her. They did not know precisely where she had gone, but presumed she was pouting somewhere. That there could be danger of any sort for the poor child in that house they never dreamed. Neither did Mr. or Mrs. Parlin dream it, or they would have walked home a little faster from their visit to the white tents on Green Street.