"Safe as long as she stays in a corner," thought Horace; and he took care to keep her supplied with books and pictures.

He enjoyed the party, not being overawed, as poor Prudy was. Wasn't he as good as any of them? Better than most, for he didn't have to use an eye-gla.s.s. "These fellows are got up cheap. What do hair-oil and perfumery amount to?"

The boys, in their turn, looked at Horace, and decided he was "backwoodsy." n.o.body who sported a silver watch could belong to the "first circles." However, when he allowed himself to be "Knight of the Whistle," and hunted for the enchanted thing which everybody was blowing, and found at last it was dangling down his own back from a string, and they were all laughing at him, he was manly enough not to get vexed. That carried him up several degrees in every one's esteem. In his own, too, I confess.

As for Prudy, the girls could not help seeing she had no style; but the boys liked her, for all that. If they had only known what their hostess thought, there would have been some surprise.

"These little misses look to me like bonnet flowers made out of book-muslin. Prudy, now, is a genuine, fresh moss rose bud. There is no comparison, you dear little Prudy, between artificial and natural flowers!"

Mrs. Pragoff was called a "finished lady." She was acquainted with some of the best people in Europe and America. What could she see in Prudy?

The child was not to be compared with these exquisite little creatures, who had maids to dress them, and foreign masters come to their houses and teach them French, music, and dancing. Why, Prudy did not know French from Hebrew; she had only learned a few tunes on the piano, and could not sing "operatic" to save her life; her dancing was generally done on one foot. What was the charm in Prudy?

Just one thing--_Naturalness_. She was not made after a pattern.

"It was a great risk inviting them here, and that youngest one seems very delicate; but let what will happen, I make a note of this: I have seen four live children."

Live children indeed! And here comes one of them now--the unaccountable Fly, darting into the room very unexpectedly, rubbing her eyes as she runs.

"Why, Topknot!" cried Horace, making a dash upon her; for her frock was unfastened, and slipping off at the shoulders, and her head looked like a last year's bird's nest.

"Scusa me," whispered the "live child," very much astonished to see such a crowd.

"But you ought not to come down here half undressed, you little midget!"

"What if I wanted to ask you sumpin?" stammered the child, more alarmed by her brother's sternness than by the fire of strange eyes. "'Spec' I mus' have my froat _goggled_; have some more _poke-rime_ round it, Hollis!" added she, in a tone loud enough to be heard by half the party.

Think of mentioning "poke-rime" in fashionable society!

"Tell her she must dance 'Little Zephyrs,' or you'll send her right back," suggested Prudy, who was famous for thinking of the right thing at the right time, and so making awkward affairs pa.s.s off well.

"Yes, Fly, come out in the floor, and dance 'Little Zephyrs' this minute, or you must go back to bed."

Anything for the sake of staying down stairs. Hardly conscious of the strange faces about her, the child flew into the middle of the room, rubbed some more sleep out of her eyes, and began to sing,--

"Little zephyrs, light and gay, First to tell us of the spring."

She seemed to float on air. There was not a bit of her body that was not in motion, from the tuft of hair a-top of her head to the soles of her twinkling boots. Now here, now there, head nodding, hands waving, feet flying.

"Encore," cried the delighted hostess. "Please, darling, let us hear that last verse again."

Mrs. Pragoff was curious to know what sort of jargon she made of the lines,--

"Where the modest violets grow, And the fair anemone."

Fly repeated it with an exquisite sweetness which charmed the whole house:--

"Where the modest _vilets_ grow, And the _fairy men no more know me_."

"The fairies do all know you, darling." exclaimed Mrs. Pragoff, kissing her rapturously.

"Your feet are more light than a faery's feet, Who dances on bubbles where brooklets meet."

"There! Dancing on bubbles!" said Prudy aside to Horace. "That's just what I always wanted to call it, but never knew how."

On the whole it was a pleasant evening, and Mrs. Pragoff had no reason to regret having given the little party. Everybody went to bed happy but Dotty, who could not shut her eyes without seeing the blaze of two rings, which burned into her brain.

CHAPTER X.

RIDING ON JACK FROST.

Fly slept in a little cot beside her hostess's bed. Mrs. Pragoff, poor lady, reclined half the night on her elbow, watching the child's breathing; but, to her inexpressible relief, nothing happened that was at all alarming. Fly only waked once in the night, and asked in a drowsy tone, "Have I got a measle?"

But just as Mrs. Pragoff was enjoying a morning nap, a pair of little feet went p.r.i.c.king over the floor, towards the girls' room, but soon returned, and a sweet young voice cried,--

"O, Miss Perdigoff, I can't wake up Dotty!"

"Can't wake her, child!"

"No'm, I can't; nor Prudy can't: we can't wake up Dotty."

Mrs. Pragoff roused at once, with a new cause for alarm.

"Why, what does this mean? Did you try hard to wake her?"

"Yes'm; I shaked her."

Mrs. Pragoff now remembered, with terror, that there had been a little trouble with Dotty's windpipe. Could she have choked to death?

Rising instantly, she threw on her wrapper, and was hurrying across the pa.s.sage, when Fly added,--

"'Haps she'll let _you_ wake her; she wouldn't let me 'n' Prudy."

"You little mischief, is that what you mean? She won't _let_ you wake her?"

"No'm, she won't," replied artless Fly; "she said she wouldn't be _bovvered_."

Mrs. Pragoff went to bed again, laughing at her own folly.

Dotty, it seems, was feeling very much like a bitter-sour apple. It had always been a peculiarity of hers to visit her own sins upon other people. Prudy did not suspect in the least what the matter was, but knew, from experience, it was safest to ask no questions.

"I'm going back to auntie's, this morning."

"Why, Dotty, Uncle Augustus and auntie won't be home till night. Mrs.

Pragoff said she would take us to the Park and the Museum, you know."