When Madam Pragoffyetski came, the housekeeper went down to the parlor to introduce the children--a step which Horace thought highly unnecessary. He was charmed at once with the foreign lady"s affable manners, and would have liked to go with her, if only Fly could have been left behind. Mrs. Fixfax explained that the child had been sick, and must be treated like a hot-house plant.
"We thought last night she was in danger of her _life_," said Dotty.
"You expected she was going to die, Horace; you know you did."
"Well, I wasn"t going to," returned Fly, coughing. "I knew I should live--I always do live."
"What was the matter?" said Mrs. Pragoffyetski, in alarm; for she knew as much about children"s ailments as she did about the volcanoes in the sun.
"Only a little sore throat," answered the housekeeper, still looking anxious, and not at all sure she was doing right.
"Yes"m, sore froat. And Dotty wanted me to have the measles, too; but I wouldn"t."
"That is right," said Mrs. Pragoffyetski, with a musical laugh. "Indeed, your little cousin was cruel to ask such a thing of you. I"m glad you didn"t do it."
They took a street-car, and Dotty pressed her face against a window, expecting to see gay sights all the way. But no; the shops had their eyes shut. Yesterday how quickly everybody had moved! Now, men and women were walking quietly along, and there was no confusion anywhere.
"How strange!" said Prudy. "I should think it was Sunday, only the boys are blowing tin trumpets."
"Yes; and the babies are going to visit their grandmammas," said Mrs.
Pragoff; "look at the one in the corner in its nurse"s arms, with a point-lace bib under its chin. That pretty blanket, embroidered so heavily, must weigh more than the baby."
Dotty kept her gaze steadily fixed on the streets.
"It seems so funny for a steeple to be _preceding_ from the middle of those stores. "Tisn"t a very pious place for a church!"
"Now I hope Dotty isn"t going to be pert," thought Prudy.
"I know what street that is, down there," added Miss Dimple, jumping out of the car with both feet; "that is Wall Street. Did they use to have walls both sides of it? Horace, you scared me so yesterday, I like to screamed. You said there were bulls and bears growling all the way along; but there wasn"t a single bear, only a stuffed one sitting on top of a store, and he wasn"t alive, and not on this street either."
Here Prudy gave her sister"s little finger a squeeze, which was meant for "hush;" but Dotty never could understand why it was not proper at all times to say what she had on her mind, especially when people listened so politely as this Polish lady.
"Mrs.--Mrs. Pragoff-yetski, I hope you"ll excuse me, but I can"t remember your name."
"That is it; you have it exactly; but never mind about the last part, my love. Pragoff is enough."
"Yes"m.--Well, I was going to ask you, Mrs. Yetski, will you please sit between me and Fly when we go into church? O, you don"t know how funny she acts, or you never"d dare take her. I wouldn"t laugh in church for anything in this world; but Fly always makes me."
"Does she, indeed! Ah me, that is very unfortunate!" said the queenly lady, looking down on little Miss Toddlekins as if she were actually afraid of her. She took care to put Dotty out of harm"s way, by placing the untamable Fly between Horace and Prudy.
The interior of Trinity Church was so magnificent, the Christmas decorations so fresh and beautiful, and the service so imposing, that no one thought of such a thing as smiling.
"How could I have been so impatient, yesterday?" thought Prudy, as she listened to the plaintive chant, "He was a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief."
"Why, if you only think of that, how our Saviour had trouble every minute, it doesn"t seem as if it makes so much difference whether we people and children have a good time or not."
Here, as they were about to seat themselves at the close of the chant, Fly, who, in spite of her brother"s warnings, had been tilting back and forth on a stool, suddenly tipped forward, and hit her nose furiously.
Blood flowed from the wound; and the sight of it, together with the pain, made the child frantic. She forgot where she was and screamed.
Poor Mrs. Pragoffyetski! Though a good woman in the main, she was rather proud of appearances, and had just been thinking the four children did her credit. But now! The shrill cry of distress called everybody"s attention to her pew. The whole audience were looking up from their prayer-books in astonishment.
"Tut, tut! My dear! My love! Hush, my babe, lie still,--O, can"t you stop crying?"
Horace, too, was trying to quiet the child; but Fly sincerely believed she was bleeding to death; so what did she care for proprieties?
"O, my shole!" piped she aloud, plunging both hands into the stream of blood, and afterwards into her hair.
Thus, by the time Mrs. Pragoff and Horace got her into the aisle, she looked as if she had been murdered.
"I wish I was twenty-one," thought Horace, bitterly. "Mrs. Fixfax had no business steaming this child. I believe it has gone to her brain."
The party of five marched out of church, for Mrs. Pragoff did not wish to make a second sensation by coming back after Prudy and Dotty.
"I never go with Fly but I get mortified," thought Miss Dimple; "and now, O dear, I shan"t hear those Christmas chimes!"
But Prudy was thinking how sorry she was for Mrs. Pragoff and Horace.
They all went into a druggist"s, and, after a few minutes spent in the use of a sponge and water, poor Fly ceased to look like a murdered victim, but very much like a marble image. When they reached Mrs.
Pragoff"s, she was placed on a sofa, and for once in her life lay still.
Horace bent over her with the wildest anxiety, thinking some terrible crisis was coming. As soon as she felt a little better, she began to cry. "O, darling, what is it?" said he, glad to see her in motion once more.
"Cause my Uncle "Gustus is sick."
"Poh," said Dotty; "crying about that? See! _I_ don"t cry."
"Well, you don"t love Uncle "Gustus so hard as I do," said Fly, with another burst.
Mrs. Pragoff looked on with interest, and tried to remember whether she had ever heard that children shed tears when they were "coming down"
with scarlet fever. This elegant mansion was a very interesting place to visit. To say nothing of things which "made a noise," there was no end of curiosities from the four quarters of the globe; and Mrs. Pragoff was so truly well-bred that the children soon felt at home. Dotty was deeply engaged in examining a sea-horse, when Prudy suddenly whispered,--
"Dotty, what did you do last night with those two rings?"
"Rings? What rings?"
Then a look of absolute terror spread over Dotty"s face. She remembered slipping off her auntie"s rings when she washed the dishes; but where had she put them?
"Why, Prudy, I _persume_ I left "em in--in--where I ought to leave "em."
"O, I"m glad you did," returned Prudy, quite satisfied, for she was listening with one ear to the liquid notes of "The Wandering Sprite."
"Why didn"t Prudy Parlin ask me before?" thought Dotty, in much agitation; "and then I could have gone all round and looked to see if I"d put them in the right place."
[Ill.u.s.tration: "DOTTY DIMPLE, YOU HERE?"]
CHAPTER VIII.
DOTTY"S WINDPIPE.