--that was the name of the little seaside place where Mr. Lucas had a
cottage. "Aunt Ruth says you must come down with us next summer; she
declares she has quite set her heart on it."

"Oh, Flurry, that would be delightful!--but how could I leave mother
and Dot?" I added in a regretful parenthesis. That was always the
burden of my song--Mother and Dot.

"Dot must come, too," pronounced Flurry, decidedly; and she actually
proposed to Miss Ruth at luncheon that "Esther's little brother
should be invited to Roseberry." Miss Ruth looked at me with kindly
amused eyes, as I grew crimson and tried to hush Flurry.

"We shall see," she returned, in her gentle voice; "if Esther will
not go without Dot, Dot must come too." But though the bare idea was
too delightful, I begged Miss Ruth not to entertain such an idea for
a moment.

I think Flurry's little speech put a kind thought into Miss Ruth's
head, for when she next invited us to drive with her, the gray horses
stopped for an instant at Uncle Geoffrey's door, and the footman
lifted Dot in his little fur-lined coat, and placed him at Miss
Ruth's side. And seeing the little lad's rapture, and Flurry's
childish delight, she often called for him, sometimes when she was
alone, for she said Dot never troubled her; he could be as quiet as a
little mouse when her head ached and she was disinclined to talk.

I said nothing happened; but one day I had a pleasant surprise, just
when I did not deserve it; for it was one of my fractious days--days
of moods and tenses I used to called them--when nothing seemed quite