in company. Then she went on talking with her friends, and Miss Dimple
slipped quietly out of the room.

"I know I don't ought to," mused the child; "I'm a-goin' to do wicked,
and get punished; but I _want_ to do wicked, and get punished. I've been
goody till I'm all tired up!"

Having made this decision, she went to Prudy's closet, and looked at the
dresses hanging wrong side outward on the pegs.

"This is a booful one," said she, pulling down a scarlet merino. She put
on the dress, forgetting, in her guilty haste, to take off her own blue
one.

"O, my suz! I never did see!" said Dotty, puffing and tugging in her
efforts to fasten the frock. "My mother must make Prudy's clo'es
bigger'n this; yes, she must. It chokes."

However, by dint of much hard work she succeeded in squeezing her round
little figure into the red merino, and fastening two of the buttons. "O,
hum!" sighed she; "this dress is so tight I shan't grow to-day!"

Dotty had a great admiration for her mother's purple breakfast shawl,
which she now threw over her little shoulders with tremulous delight.
Nono's Sunday bonnet she next laid her naughty hands upon. Very charming
was this bonnet in Dotty's eyes, as it was made of claret-colored silk,
and was all on fire inside with scorching red and yellow flames. It was
so huge and so deep that Dotty's small face under it looked as if it had
got lost in Mammoth Cave.