number. She said it over and over so many times, that all of a sudden it
went out of her mind. It was like rolling a ball on the ground, backward
and forward, till most unexpectedly it pops into a hole. Very much
frightened, Dotty bit her lip, twirled her front hair, and pinched her
left cheek--all in vain; the number wouldn't come.

"O, dear, what'll I do? I'd open that cellar door, where the driver is;
but he's all done up in a blue cape, and don't know anything only how
to whip his horses. And there don't anybody know where anybody lives in
this city; so it's no use to ask. For what do they care? They'd tell you
to look in the Dictionary. There's nobody in Portland ever told me to
look in a Dictionary. Here they are, sitting round here, just as happy,
all but me. They all live in a number, and they know what it is; but
they keep it to themselves,--they don't tell. It always makes people
feel better to know where they're going to. When I'm in Portland I know
how to get to Park Street, and how to get to Munjoy, and how to get to
Back Cove, with my eyes shut. But they don't make things as they ought
to in New York. You can't find out what to do."

So the stage rumbled, and Dotty grumbled. Presently a lady in an ermine
cloak got out, and Dotty did not know of anything better to do than to
follow. She certainly was on Fifth Avenue, and perhaps, if she walked
on, she should come to the number.

"There isn't any house along here that looks like auntie's," said she,
anxiously; "only they all look like it some. I never saw such a place as
this city, So many same things right over, and over; and then, when you
go into 'em, its just as different, and not the place you s'posed it
was."