"I don't know now any better than I did before. That's a name for a doll-baby; I should say." "Alice Parlin, mother." "Is it? O, well; you may take her up stairs out of my way; but mind, you must knit every minute you're gone." Dotty was greatly abashed by this reception, and would have rushed out of the house, but Mandoline held her fast. "You shan't go a step," said she, "I'll hide your hat." So Dotty, under peril of going home bareheaded, was obliged to creep up the rickety staircase with Mandoline. She likened her feelings on the occasion to those of a person whom "the mayor is putting in the lockup." Indeed, the "lock-up" was Dotty's dream of all the horrors, and she had no doubt it was the mayor himself who always stood with his hands outstretched, ready to thrust wicked people into it. The chamber which the little girls entered was an unfinished one, and from the rafters hung paper bags of dried herbs; for, besides being a housekeeper and clerk, Mrs. Rosenberg was something of a doctress withal, and made "bitters" for her particular friends. "Sit down here on the bed, Dotty Dimple, and look at my paper dolls," said Lina, producing from under a disjointed chair, an old cigar box full of paper heroes and heroines. Mandoline was an artist in he! way, and these figures were clad in the most brilliant costumes of silver and gold. Dotty was dazzled. Never before had it been her lot to see such magnificent dolls,--dolls which shone so in the sun; every one of them a king or a queen, and fit to wear a crown. "O, Lina," sighed she, in ecstasy, "where _do_ you get your silver and gold?" "Tease for it," replied the little Jewess. Dotty knew, to her own sorrow, that Lina was capable of teasing. It was hard to keep so much as an apple or a peppermint away from her if she happened to set her heart on it. "I'll give you twenty dolls," said Lina, "if you'll let me have your ring; and it isn't a very pretty ring, either; looks like brass." Dotty locked her fingers together. "You can't tease away my owny dony pearl, Lina, if it _is_ brass; so you needn't try." "Mandoline!" called out Mrs. Rosenberg's sharp voice from down stairs, "are you at work?" "O, dear!" said Lina, sauntering along to an old chest, and taking her knitting from the top of it; "that's always the way. I thought if you came, mother'd let me play." Dotty understood from this remark why Lina had asked her to go home with her. It was not because she wished to hear any of Dotty's brilliant stories, for she had not asked a single question about Out West; it was because she hoped for a reprieve from the dreaded knitting. "She's a real naughty little girl," thought Miss Dimple; "and if she hadn't hided my hat, I'd go right home."