girl turned away her head and steadily gazed out of the window at the trees and houses flying by. It appeared very much as if she suspected he had been making sport of her.

"She isn't a perfect ignoramus, after all," he thought; "that last lie was a little too big."

After this he sat for some time watching his little companion, anxious for an opportunity to assure her that these absurd stories had been spun out of his own brain. But Dotty never once turned her face towards him. She was thinking,—

"P'rhaps he's a good boy; p'rhaps he's a naughty boy: but I shan't believe him till I ask my father."

At Portsmouth, Captain Lally and son left the cars, much to Dotty's relief, though they did carry away the beautiful Spanish rabbit; and it seemed to the child as if a piece of her heart went with it.

"Is my little girl tired?" said Mr. Parlin, putting an arm around Dotty.

"No, papa, only I'm thinking. The north pole is top of the world—isn' it? As much as five hundred miles off?"

"A great deal farther than that, my dear."

"There, I thought so! And we couldn't hear 'em pound it down with an axe—could we? That isn't what makes thunder? O, what a boy!"

Mr. Parlin laughed heartily.

"Did Adolphus tell you such a story as that?"

"Yes, sir, he did," cried Dotty, indignantly, "and said there was a dipper to it, with a handle on, as large as a tub. And a man tied it that came from I-don't-know-where, and found this world. I know that wasn't true, for he didn't say anything about Adam and Eve. What an awful boy!"

"What did you say to Adolphus?" said Mr. Parlin, still laughing. "Hadn't you been putting on airs? And wasn't that the reason he made sport of you?"

"I don't know what 'airs' are, papa."

"Perhaps you told him, for instance, that you were travelling out West, and asked him if he ever went so far as that."

"Perhaps I did," stammered Dotty.

"And it is very likely you made the remark that you had the whole care of yourself, and know how to part your hair in the middle. I did not listen; but it is possible you told him you could play on the piano."

Dotty looked quite ashamed.

"This is what we call 'putting on airs.' Adolphus was at first rather quiet and unpretending. Didn't you think he might be a little stupid? And didn't you wish to give him the idea that you yourself were something of a fine lady?"

How very strange it was to Dotty that her father could read the secret thoughts which she herself could hardly have told! She felt supremely wretched, and crept into his bosom to hide her blushing face.

"I didn't say Adolphus did right to tease you," said Mr. Parlin, gently.

He thought the little girl's lesson had been quite severe enough; for, after all, she had done nothing very wrong: she had only been a little foolish.

"Upon my word, chincapin," said he, "we haven't opened that basket yet! What do you say to a lunch, with the Boston Journal for a table-cloth? And here comes a boy with some apples."

In two minutes Dotty had buried her chagrin in a sandwich.

And all the while the cars were racketing along towards Boston.

CHAPTER III.

A BABY IN A BLUE CLOAK.

Dotty had begun to smile again, and was talking pleasantly with her father, when there was a sudden rocking of the cars, or, as Prudy had called it, a "car-quake." Dotty would have been greatly alarmed if she had not looked up in her father's face and seen that it was perfectly tranquil. They had run over a cow.

This little accident gave a new turn to the child's thoughts. She gazed at the conductor with some distrust. If he did not take care of the cars, what made him wear that printed hat-band? She supposed that in some mysterious way he drove or guided the furious iron horse; and when she saw him sitting at ease, conversing with the passengers, she was not