When she was left alone, Margaret still sat there, letting the room get acquainted with her, and settling herself into a new and delicious content. Happening after a while to glance toward the door, she saw it slowly and noiselessly moving an inch or two, stopping, then again opening a little way. She continued to look, wondering what singular current of air or eccentricity of hinge produced that intermittent motion. Presently she spied, clasped around the edge of the door, at about two feet from the carpet, four infinitesimal fingertips, rosy-white against the yellow-white of the paint. Miss Hamilton checked the breath a little on her smiling lips, and awaited further revelations. {51} After a moment, there appeared just above the fingers a half-curled, flossy lock of pale gold-colored hair, and softly dawning after that aurora, a beautiful child's face. "Oh! come to me!" exclaimed Margaret. Immediately the face disappeared, and there was silence. Miss Hamilton leaned back in her chair again, and began to recollect the tactics for such cases made and provided by the great law-giver Nature. She affected not to be aware that the silken locks reappeared, and after them a glimpse of a low, milk-white forehead, then a blue, bright eye, and finally, the whole exquisite little form in a gala-dress of white, with a gay sash and shoulder-knots. Dora came in looking intently at the mantel-piece, and elaborately unconscious that there was any one present but herself. Miss Hamilton's attention was entirely absorbed by the outer world. "I never did see such a lovely flower as there is in that window," she soliloquized. "It is as pink as ever it can be. Indeed, I think it is a little pinker than it can conveniently be. It must have to try hard." Dora glanced toward the stranger, and listened attentively. "And I see three tiny clouds scudding down the east. I shouldn't be surprised if their mother didn't know they are out. They run as if they didn't mean to stop till they get into the middle of next week." Dora took a step or two nearer, looked warily at the speaker, and peeped out the window in search of the truant cloudlets. "And there is another cloud overhead that has gone sound asleep," Miss Hamilton pursued as tranquilly as if she had been sitting there and talking time out of mind. "One side of it is as white as it can be, and the other side is so much whiter than it can be, that it makes the white side look dark. If anybody wants to see it, she had better make haste." "Anybody," was by this time close to the window, looking out with all her eyes, her hand timidly, half unconsciously touching the lady's dress. "Oh! what a splendid bird!" cried the enchantress. "What a pity it should fly away! But it may come back again pretty soon." Silence, and the pressure of a dimpled elbow on Margaret's knee. "I suppose you don't care much about sitting in my lap, so as to see better," was the next remark, addressed, apparently, to all out-doors.