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