DOTTY DIMPLE OUT WEST.




CHAPTER I.

STARTING.


One beautiful morning in October the sun came up rejoicing.
Dotty Dimple watched it from the window with feelings of peculiar
pleasure.

"I should think that old sun would wear out and grow rough round the
edges. Why not? Last week it was ever so dull; now it is bright. I
shouldn't wonder if the angels up there have to scour it once in a
while."

You perceive that Dotty's ideas of astronomy were anything but correct.
She supposed the solar orb was composed of a very peculiar kind of
gold, which could be rubbed as easily as Norah's tin pans, though so
intensely hot that one's fingers would, most likely, be scorched in the
operation.

On this particular morning she felt an unusual interest in the state of
the weather. It had been decided that she should go West with her
father, and this was the day set for departure. "I am happy up to my
throat:" so she said to Prudy. And now all this happiness was to be
buttoned up in a cunning little casaque, with new gaiters at the feet,