her garments in an attitude of mingled supplication and love.
Sinking lower and lower down, as she proceeded in her strange
confession, she dropped at last at the feet of her friend, and hid
her blind face in the folds of her dress.

'Great Power!' exclaimed her father, smitten at one blow with the
truth, 'have I deceived her from the cradle, but to break her heart
at last!'

It was well for all of them that Dot, that beaming, useful, busy
little Dot--for such she was, whatever faults she had, and however
you may learn to hate her, in good time--it was well for all of
them, I say, that she was there: or where this would have ended,
it were hard to tell. But Dot, recovering her self-possession,
interposed, before May could reply, or Caleb say another word.

'Come, come, dear Bertha! come away with me! Give her your arm,
May. So! How composed she is, you see, already; and how good it
is of her to mind us,' said the cheery little woman, kissing her
upon the forehead. 'Come away, dear Bertha. Come! and here's her
good father will come with her; won't you, Caleb? To--be--sure!'

Well, well! she was a noble little Dot in such things, and it must
have been an obdurate nature that could have withstood her
influence. When she had got poor Caleb and his Bertha away, that
they might comfort and console each other, as she knew they only
could, she presently came bouncing back,--the saying is, as fresh
as any daisy; I say fresher--to mount guard over that bridling
little piece of consequence in the cap and gloves, and prevent the
dear old creature from making discoveries.