The group at the door looked after them wistfully.

"Be a good child," said Mrs. Parlin, waving her handkerchief, "and do
just as papa tells you, my dear."

"Remember the three hugs to Gracie, and six to Flyaway," cried Prudy;
"and don't let anybody see my letter."

Dotty threw kisses with such vigor that, if they had been anything else
but air, somebody would have been hit.

The hack ride did not last long. It was like the preface to a
story-book; and Dotty did not think much about it after she had come to
the story,--that is to say, to the cars.

Her father found a pleasant seat on the shady side, hung the basket in a
rack, opened a window; and very soon the iron horse, which fed on fire,
rushed, snorting and shrieking, away from the depot. Dotty felt as if
she had a pair of wings on her shoulders, or a pair of seven-league
boots on her feet; at any rate, she was whirling through space without
any will of her own. The trees nodded in a kindly way, and the grass in
the fields seemed to say, as it waved, "Good by, Dotty, dear! good by!
You'll have a splendid time out West! out West! out West!"

It was not at all like going to Willowbrook. It seemed as if these
Boston cars had a motion peculiar to themselves. It was a very small
event just to take an afternoon's ride to Grandpa Parlin's; but when it
came to whizzing out to Indiana, why, that was another affair! It wasn't
every little girl who could be trusted so far without her mother.